Shock to the Césars, Polanski awarded, Adele Haenel leaves

The award ceremony for the Césars, the French Oscars, ends this year with a shocking award, deeply marked this year by the controversy over the nomination record for Roman Polanski, director of 'J'accuse' accused of sexual violence. Targeted by the contestation, Polanski - absent - won the prize for best director, greeted by shouts and whistles in the hall. While Adele Haenel, the actress of Portrait of the Young Woman in Flame by Celine Sciamma, who became a symbol of the new French "metoo", left the room shouting.

The twist was in the air: all the 4 hours of the ceremony passed between silences and jokes by the presenter Florence Foresti and the various VIPs of the show called on stage to deliver the prizes. Among them Chiara Mastroianni and Fanny Ardant (awarded as best supporting actress for 'La belle epoque').

Before the ceremony, a hundred people gathered outside the Salle Pleyel in Paris to contest the record of 12 nominations for the Polanski film, which has now become a target of the women's protest in France. The 86-year-old Franco-Polish director has been wanted by American justice for years in a juvenile corruption proceeding started in 1977. Recently, Polanski himself has been the subject of new accusations of sexual violence by the French photographer. Valentine Monnier, who claims she was beaten and raped in 1975 in Switzerland when she was 18 years old. Like her, other women have accused Polanski of violence in recent years for facts that have all been prescribed.

Targeted by the charges, Polanski made it known on the eve of the ceremony that he would not be present. After him, the entire production and cast of the film decided not to be present. The nominations had already deeply shaken the world of French cinema, so much so that the entire direction of the César prize, the French Oscars, had to resign. At the announcement of the award for best director - an event that the Minister of Culture had already called "a negative symbol" - the eyes of all went to Adele Haenel, the leading actress of "La jeune fille en feu". She, who became the symbol of the protest of the new French cinema after the #meetoo after denouncing the harassment of director Christophe Ruggia when she was a teenager, got up and left the room shouting outraged. Behind her, the film's director, Celine Sciamma.