several actresses accuse Philippe Garrel of sexual violence

2023-08-30 21:10:15

Mediapart collected testimonies from Anna Mouglalis, Clotilde Hesme and other actresses who wished to remain anonymous. All evoke inappropriate gestures and kisses on the part of the director of the New wave.

New thunderbolt in the middle of French cinema. Director Philippe Garrel, a leading figure in the New Wave, is accused of sexual violence by several actresses. In a survey published on Mediapart’s website, the actresses denounce inappropriate actions, some of which may amount to sexual assault. Among those who take the floor, former students of the director at the Conservatory as well as the actresses Anna Mouglalis, Clotilde Hesme, Marie Vialle and Laurence Cordier. According to them, the filmmaker would have tried to kiss them without their consent or would have made inappropriate gestures.

The actress Anna Mouglalis, who denounces the actions of the director, has already worked with him on a film released in 2013, Jealousy. According to Mediapart, he then contacted her again to write a new feature film on female desire. The actress organizes work sessions at her home with the director who is 30 years older than her at the time of the events. According to Anna Mouglalis, Philippe Garrel disappears from her living room after she left to go to the bathroom. She finds the director lying on his bed, on the pretext that he “needed it for his pains”. “It’s so huge when there were two sofas right next to it in the living room!” testifies the actress to Mediapart.

Philippe Garrel would have insisted on staying at the actress’s home, before calling a taxi. The director rejects this version of the facts. “We were in the kitchen, and I felt unwell. I told her that I needed to lie down, to which she replied, “Oh? You think ?” And I repeated to him that I really didn’t feel well and that I had to lie down. So I went to his bed and lay down for twenty minutes, before going home. » He also assures that he had no “no ambivalent gesture” during this professional meeting.

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“Forced Kisses”

Other testimonies from women refer to forced kisses. This is the case of an actress who wished to remain anonymous. According to Mediapart, she got a small role in one of the director’s feature films in 2017. The following year, Philippe Garrel told her that he was working on a new screenplay and wanted to meet her. During the meeting, Garrel tells her that he has reserved a hotel room. The young lady “believes in a joke” and explain that there is “error about the person”. She would have made it clear that she “wants to discuss work but that’s all”.

When they go on the terrace of a café a few minutes later to discuss the work, the director would have caressed her thighs. “That’s actually enough”, the young woman would have told him. According to his testimony, he would have retorted: “I try.” Before accompanying her to the subway, where he would have tried to kiss her. For his part, Philippe Garrel evokes, him, “a peck on the cheek”.

The actress Laurence Cordier testifies to similar facts. In 2003, when she was in her final year at the Paris Conservatory, the director invited her to dinner to talk to her about a role. After this meeting, he allegedly offered her a «promenade» during which he walks “very close” from her. And throw him: “Come on, I’ll pay you for the hotel.” The actress, who specifies that she refused, accuses the director of having then grabbed her by the waist, before she put him at a distance. An episode that she would have already mentioned in the magazine The Inrocksdescribed at the time as “an interaction with a major director of French cinema”.

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“I can’t make the movie if I don’t sleep with you”

In 1994, the director would have, according to Mediapart, proposed to“write a film for” one of his conservatory students, Marie Vialle. The young woman, who studied at this school between the ages of 20 and 23, talks about several professional meetings, including one where the director tried to kiss her. “I can’t make the movie if I don’t sleep with you”he would have said to her, before confessing to her that he is “lover” of her and that he needs, for his film, to know her “for real”. The actress renounces the film.

For his part, Philippe Garrel evokes sincere feelings. “I remember explaining to him that, like many New Wave directors, I liked to shoot with the woman I was in love with and film her. I may have tried to kiss her, I don’t remember, but she most certainly rejected me since it was precisely at that lunch that I understood that she was not at all attracted to me”, he explains to Mediapart. Before apologizing: “If I hurt Marie Vialle, for whom I have a lot of respect, I’m sorry.”

Read alsoGérard Depardieu accused by 13 women of sexual violence

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Of the «humiliations»

Anaïs, another actress who testifies anonymously, explains that the director would have tried to kiss her in 2013. According to her testimony, the young woman does not experience the experience as an assault. “Tetanized, I did not understand. Then, he was very respectful of my refusal. I was surprised but I didn’t experience it badly. I said to myself that he was not going to take me as I had refused and he called me back for the role“, she explains.

The actress Clotilde Hesme, who played in The Regular Lovers (2005) criticizes the filmmaker for his «humiliations» during the making of this film. According to her, the filmmaker nicknamed her “Incest”because in the film, she lived a love story with her son, Louis.

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The director evokes an awareness on reading the various testimonies. “I realize the difference between what I imagined then and what I made them live. I had already become aware of the culture that shaped me, and that opened up a questioning in me”, he wrote. Shortly after this declaration, the director would have contacted Anna Mouglalis on August 24 to ask her to “withdraw testimony” in the name of “friendship” which binds them. “I have never seen Philippe Garrel outside of work, but he calls it friendship. And then, he didn’t call me to find out what motivated my testimony, just to ask me to remove it“, estimates the actress with Mediapart. For Philippe Garrel, it was about discussing “of the charges she had brought against him”. For the director’s lawyer, the latter “didn’t put any pressure on this actress”.