French filmmaker Christophe Ruggia, accused of sexually assaulting actress Adèle Haenel when she was 12 years old, He denied the charges this Monday at the beginning of his trial in Paris.
In view, held five years later After his accusations ignited France’s #MeToo movement, Haenel responded: “You are a big liar, Mr. Ruggia, and you know it very well.”
Specifically, the director is accused of sexually assaulting the ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ actress in the early 2000s. when she was between 12 and 14 years old and he was around 30.
Haenel, now 35 and retired from film, was the first prominent actress to accuse the French film industry to turn a blind eye against sexual abuse. “There had to be a French #MeToo and it fell on me,” Ruggia, 59, former leader of the directors’ union, addressed the court, calling the accusations “pure lies.”
Ruggia faces punishment up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 150,000 euros ($159,000) if convicted. In 2019, Haenel made the attacks public, surprising the French film industry, which had been slower than Hollywood to react to the #MeToo movement.
The Frenchman directed Haenel in the 2002 film ‘The Demons’, a story of an incestuous relationship between a boy and his autistic sister. It was his first film role. The film contains sex scenes between minors and close-ups of Haenel’s naked body.
According to investigations, members of the film crew spoke of their “concern” about Ruggia’s behavior on set. Between 2001 and 2004, the teenager went to see Ruggia almost every Saturday. Haenel explained to the court that the director He caressed her thighs and touched her genitals and chest..
To “act as if it were normal, as if nothing was happening,” he “interspersed” words between his gestures, he has testified. “And I would tense up, curl up in a corner of the sofa,” he continued. “When he thought I was resisting too much, he looked at me and continued.”
Subsequently, before taking her back to her parentsgave him a ‘snack’: cookies and a juice.
In Ruggia’s version, it was Haenel herself who “asked to go” to her house. As stated, the two “talked about movies, chatted, most of the time.” “We spent an hour or an hour and a half in front of the DVD shelves,” he added.
Ruggia has expressed that Haenel “has reconstructed the facts, may have reinterpreted” the interactions as sexual.
When the judge asked him why the actress held a grudge against himthe director has suggested that he had become “radicalized.” «Look what he has been doing for the last five years. It started with me, then at the César (awards) with Polanski,” until he went so far as to say that “all government ministers are rapists,” he added.
In 2020, Haenel walked out of the industry’s César Awards ceremony in protest of an award given to veteran director Roman Polanski.
Although Ruggia has denied having been “sexually attracted” to Haenel as a child, he has reiterated that she had an “overwhelming sensuality” at age 12, during the filming of the film, “and she still has it today.” The director’s defense has chosen not to question Haenel.
The trial resumes this Tuesday. At Monday’s session, about 50 people, mostly women, They gathered in front of the court before the audience shouting: “Adèle, we believe you.” They carried banners with slogans such as: “Adèle, you are not alone.”
The actress, winner of two Césars – the French equivalent of an Oscar – left the industry last year due to what she called her complacency towards sexual predators.
Film legend Gerard Depardieu, 75, will go on trial in March accused of sexually assaulting two women. He denies the allegations. On the other hand, actress Judith Godreche expressed this year that two French directors, Benoit Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, had sexually abused her when she was a teenager. Both deny the charges.
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