Open in October 2018 after the complaint of a young woman, the investigation for sexual assault targeting director Abdellatif Kechiche was closed without action for "insufficiently characterized offense", we learned from the Paris prosecutor's office on Tuesday.
"For once, reason prevailed over pathos", congratulates Me Jérémie Assous, lawyer for the filmmaker, Palme d'or in 2013 for "La vie d'Adèle". At the time aged 29, the complainant had claimed, according to BFMTV, to have had dinner in June 2018 with the director in an apartment in Paris in the XXth arrondissement.
Asleep after drinking several glasses of alcohol, she claimed "to have woken up on the sofa", that "her pants were open" and that the filmmaker "was touching her", according to the news channel .
Controversies
Abdellatif Kechiche was first an actor before becoming a director and director. In the cinema, he distinguished himself with famous works such as “L'Esquive” or “la Graine et le Mulet”, both awarded César awards for best film, and “La vie d'Adèle”, at the center of a controversy a few months after his coronation in Cannes.
Known for his high standards on set, the director had been the target of one of the two main actresses in the film, Léa Seydoux, who had denounced “horrible” shooting conditions, endless days and hundreds of shots for the same scene.
Calling himself "humiliated" by this public quarrel, Abdellatif Kechiche ended up saying that he would have preferred that the film not come out because it had been "too dirty". In 2019, his film "Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo" had also sparked controversy at the Cannes Film Festival, due to very raw sex scenes, including one not simulated.
