New storm on Woody Allen after the announcement that his autobiography "Apropos of Nothing" will be released in April with Grand Central, a division of the Hachette publishing house. Dylan Farrow, who continues to accuse her adoptive father of molesting her as a child in the 1990s, called the worldwide simultaneous publication (in Italy with La Nave di Teseo) "shocking" on April 7 of the memoir, while Ronan, the only one biological son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow who with Hachette published the bestseller "Catch and Kill", has announced that he will no longer work with the publishing house.
"Ronan voiced many survivors of sexual harassment by powerful men," said Dylan, speaking of a "betrayal" as young Farrow wrote to Hachette's CEO, Michael Pietsch: "While we worked together on 'Catch and Kill ', a book that also talks about Allen's damage to my family, secretly negotiated to publish a book of a person who committed those sexual abuse acts. Honestly I can't work with Hachette anymore. Imagine what it would have been like if it had happened to your sister". The memoir - explained Grand Central - tells the life, personal and professional, of the director and actor, "through his commitment to cinema, theater, television, nightclubs and the press". In the autobiography Allen also addresses "his relationship with family, friends, and the loves of his life".
Dylan said she had never been contacted directly by Hachette's "fact checkers" to verify the claims of the foster father. "This gives us another example of the profound privilege allowed by power, money and fame. The complicity of Hachette should be sued for who she is, "said the young woman. In addition to Italy and the USA, Woody's memoir will be released in France, Germany and Spain, three markets where the director's films have remained popular even in the #MeToo era. The book had been circulated last year but had not attracted offers from major publishers due to the climate created by the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the former Miramax boss found guilty of harassment and rape in New York. Woody Allen is 84 years old and is considered one of the great living directors with films such as "Me and Annie" and "Manhattan" and four Academy Awards, but in 2018 Amazon too had pulled out of a multimillion dollar production and distribution agreement and many actors like Colin Firth, Greta Gerwig and Timothée Chalamet had announced that they would never shoot with him again.
As for the latest films, "A Rainy Day in New York" was released in some European countries including Italy but not in the USA, while the latest production, "Rifkin's Festival" with Christoph Waltz and Gina Gershon, shot last summer, is still waiting for a distributor.