Actress and filmmaker Judith Godrèche, who has been at the forefront of a fresh #MeToo wave in France this year, has been invited by the Cannes Film Festival to world premiere short film Moi Aussi in Official Selection.
The film, highlighting the stories of victims of sexual violence, will be screened during the opening ceremony for its Un Certain Regard section in the Palais des Festivals’ Salle Debussy and as part of the free, public Cinéma de la Plage program on May 15.
Moi Aussi follows in the wake of Godrèche’s decision earlier this year to publicly denounce her six-year relationship with director Benoît Jacquot in the 1980s, which began when she was 14 years old, and he was 39.
The actress and filmmaker, who said she was under his influence and that the relationship was wrong, filed a police complaint against the Farewell, My Queen and Diary of a Chambermaid director in February for “rape with constraint”. He has denied the accusations.
Godrèche went on to make an historic address at France’s César awards calling for an end to the culture of silence in the French film industry around sexual harassment and abuse.
The actress and filmmaker’s actions have set in motion a fresh #MeToo wave in France, with other sexual harassment and abuse victims encouraged to speak up.
Godrèche wrote and directed Moi Aussi, with Didar Domehri of Maneki Films producing, in response to the more than 6,000 replies she received after putting out a call on the social networks for victims to come forward and share their testimonies with her.
Shot under the radar on a Paris street on March 23, Moi Aussi gathers more than 1,000 victims of sexual abuse who answered Godreche’s call.
“Suddenly, before me was a crowd of victims, a reality that also represented France, so many stories from all social backgrounds and generations,” Godrèche said in a Cannes Film Festival statement announcing the short film’s selection.
“Then the question was, what I was going to do with them? What do you do when you’re overwhelmed by what you hear, by the sheer volume of testimonies?” Reconstructing an intimate audio and visual landscape, she created a film in the form of a choral piece, made up of personal accounts told in fragments and she staged this bitter but life-saving journey, from wordless pain to the beginning of liberation through words, with some 1,000 people. Music, dance, images and the world of imagination offer them a space as physical as it is symbolic: to be together, in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, and to occupy the city as a militant gesture.”
Godrèche began her career in 1981 with Nadine Trintignant’s Next Summer, and has since racked up close to 50 credits working with directors such as Sophie Fillières, Cédric Klapisch, Park Chan-wook, Olivier Assayas, Jerzy Skolimowski, François Ozon and Tonie Marshall.
In 2010, she wrote and directed her first film, Girls Cry and returned to the director’s chair in 2023 with her Icon of French Cinema series, broadcast on Arte.
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