“
Yes, we need to talk.
Yes, we must denounce.
But we must also respect the rhythm of the victims.
It’s also a question of consent,”
declares Isild Le Besco in
Le Parisien.
Twenty years after her relationship with Benoît Jacquot, the actress brings her testimony to that of Judith Godrèche who filed a complaint against the director for rape of a minor.
Isild Le Besco reveals in
Le Monde
“psychological or physical violence”
on the part of Benoît Jacquot.
In 1999, Isild Le Besco played his first major role opposite Daniel Auteuil in
Sade
, directed by Benoît Jacquot.
Then aged 16, she played the role of Émilie de Lancris which earned her a first nomination for the César for Most Promising Actress.
A few months after filming the film, the young woman began an affair with the director, who was 52 years old at the time.
During the five years spent together, the actress denounces a
“destructive influence”
“For example, he was constantly telling me that I was fat,”
she relates.
For his part, the director completely denies any physical violence against the actress and denounces
“lies”
in a statement to AFP.
An autobiographical book
Isild Le Besco explains that he is writing a book about his relationship with the filmmaker.
A sort of therapy to free yourself from all these bad memories:
“Because I had a blackout.
Because it's complicated to write off an entire person and everything you've experienced with that person.
Because we are so ashamed that we feel responsible for the behavior of others.”
To explain that her testimony comes 20 years after the events, she explains that
“speaking publicly about intimate relationships is very painful because we expose ourselves.
It's looking for the words to express the humiliation, the invisible
.
The actress who has appeared in around thirty films also recounts a misadventure with director Jacques Doillon, also the target of a rape complaint by Judith Godrèche.
“I was 17 and he asked me to prepare for a role.
For weeks, I worked improvising and correcting the script and the day I refused his advances, he fired me from the film.
He literally plundered me and not just my work
,” she explains to Le
Parisien
.
On the eve of the 49th Césars ceremony, and a possible new speech by Judith Godrèche, Isild Le Besco salutes the courage of her colleague but regrets
"that it takes a media scandal to be listened to by the police and the courts"
.
She also points out the complicity of the world of cinema
“which behaved exactly as a family behaves when one of its members is mistreated: by remaining silent
”.
“In a system (which) is such that the actress depends on the desire of the director
,” the 41-year-old woman does not rule out the idea of filing a complaint against Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon.