Roman Polanski Wins Best Director at 'French Oscars'

Roman Polanski won the best director for "An Soldier and a Thief" at a fractious ceremony for the French Oscars, the Cesars, which ended early Saturday in Paris with walkouts and recriminations.

Earlier this month, the entire French academy had been forced to resign in the wake of indignation that the veteran — wanted in the US for a 13-year-old girl's statutory rape in 1977—had topped the nomination list.

Demonstrators screaming "Lock Polanski!" I tried to storm the cinema where the ceremony was held until police shooting tear gas were pushed back.

And French Minister of Culture Franck Riester cautioned that offering a Cesar to the producer of "Rosemary's Child" would be "symbolically inappropriate given the position we have to take toward sexual and patriarchal abuse."

But Polanski won two awards, best adapted screenplay, and best director — with the latter prompting Adele Haenel, who was nominated for best actress for “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”, to storm out, crying “Shame!”

Haenel has become a hero of the #MeToo movement in France after accusing the director of her first film, Christophe Ruggia, of sexually harassing her when she was only 12.

Polanski’s film also picked up the best costume design.

– ‘Public lynching’ –

“Distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims,” Haenel had said in the run-up to the Cesars.

“It means raping women isn’t that bad.”

Polanski, 86, and the entire team of his historical drama had boycotted the ceremony, fearing a “public lynching”.

“An Officer and a Spy” is based on the Dreyfus affair which divided France in the late 19th century when a Jewish army officer was wrongly prosecuted for spying.

“What place can there be in such deplorable conditions for a film about the defense of truth, the fight for justice, (against) blind hate and anti- Semitism?” the director told AFP.

Polanski’s epic, which won two top prizes at the Venice film festival last year, was in the running in 12 categories at the Cesars.

But the big winner on the night was the Oscar-nominated “Les Miserables”, set in one of France’s deprived and restive suburbs.

It took the best film and three other prizes including the audience award.

It’s Mali-born director Ladj Ly made an appeal for unity on a highly fraught night, saying “our enemy is not the other, but poverty”.

– Poisonous atmosphere –

“Papicha”, a touching story of Algerian women fighting for their freedom by Mounia Meddour, also fared well, winning both the best first film and best female newcomer for actress Lyna Khoudri.

With the French film industry at war with itself over Polanski, Hollywood star Brad Pitt also snubbed the event having reportedly been offered an honorary award.

The French press had dubbed the event “The Cesars of Anguish”, with Le Parisien daily mocking up a movie poster of Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”.

And the ceremony lived up to its billing.

The toxic environment had already eroded on the eve of the ceremony, when 30 entertainment personalities from minority groups cut the lip service they pretended to include the business films.

– Casual racism –

In a blistering open letter, they said black, North African and Asian-origin performers are mostly confined to stereotypical bit parts in French films.

On the night, one of the signatories of the letter, actress Aissa Maiga, delivering a scathing critique of casual racism in the industry as she

presented the prize for best newcomer, including skewering presenter Florence Foresti for once donning blackface. But it was the absent figure of Polanski which caused most unease, with a presenter only daring to mumble his name when he opened the envelope for his first win.

The publicity campaign for Polanski’s movie was halted last year after another woman, photographer Valentine Monnier, claimed that she had also been raped by the director in 1975.

But that did not stop it becoming a box office hit in France.

Polanski had told AFP that he had decided to stay away from the ceremony to protect his family and his team from abuse.

“The activists brandish the figure of 12 women who I am supposed to have molested half a century ago,” he said.

“These fantasies of sick minds are treated as established fact,” he complained.