Me too cinema: actress Caroline Doucet accuses director Catherine Breillat

In a book published on Wednesday, August 28, actress Caroline Deuces, the female lead in the movie Romance, decided to end her “Twenty-five years of silence“.

According to her testimony in the book “Predator (female name)”, she was raped on the set of the 1998 movie Romance. He accuses the director of this film, Catherine Breillat, of influence through the director. .

Along with the release of this book, Caroline Ducey also spoke in the columns New Obs.

“There is no question in the original script or in the contract that I will sign later that these (sex) scenes are not simulated.“, he explained to Nouvel Obs.

The rest of this article may offend sensibilities

In the book, Caroline Doucet recounts the rape she explained she suffered at the hands of an actor with whom she shared a scene in the film: “I don’t understand what’s going on, something in my penis is spinning and spinning non-stop and it’s burning me. The poison spreads through my limbs and paralyzes me. I feel like I’m losing my mind. This is a black hole. I leave my body, my mind wanders in an unknown area, in a thick fog. My ghost has just been born… “tock tock tock tock tock”, I hear nothing but the sound of this machine gun. I return to myself. Everything is blurry, then it becomes clear: I became someone…

I see a few people from the team through the curtain. I still hear nothing but an eerie “tock tock tock tock.” Then I hear voices: “The film is finished, we need to reset the camera.” I come to my senses, stand up, grab the boy by the throat and complain: “Don’t do that anymore, I’m listening to you, no one else, don’t do it anymore, do you understand?” » He saw the desire to kill in my eyes, I realized. I couldn’t say the surprised words. You need a second intake.

This scene lasts one minute and seven seconds… the first time in twenty years that people have typed my name into the pictures section of the internet. To be honest, I don’t know how I managed to get a bullet through my head.“

Catherine Brailey is adamantly in denial

In response to this article, Le Nouvel Obs quotes the words of Catherine Breilla. The director accused by Caroline Deuce denies the accusation of rape by the actress during the filming of the film: “I confirm that Caroline was not raped on the setThe director also gives another version regarding non-simulated sexual acts:(He) accepted them, but it was not stipulated in his contract, so he was free not to take them.“

In the book, Caroline Doucet recounts, moreover, a scene she witnessed on the set: Catherine Breilla would have.The actor masturbated on the set“. The director replies that it is”A delusional accusation intended to harm and humiliate (him)“.

Reasons for spreading this testimony 25 years later

From the beginning of 2024, the “#Mets” cinema experienced a new situation. After Judith Godrech or Isilde Le Besco, the testimony of Caroline Deuce is part of this liberation of speaking and listening.

In her book, Caroline Duce says:I am not talking about destroying this woman and her work. I have nothing against the existence of his cinema – even if I think it is important to oversee its distribution by providing details. Destruction will not bring me anything today, on the contrary. I have to keep in my head what is left of the innocence that brought me when I agreed to interpret the character of Marie.

I am not on the side of revenge, and I want to continue to believe in justice, even if it is no longer a thing for me.

I am not on the side of revenge, and I want to continue to believe in justice, even if it is no longer a thing for me. I still want to believe in acknowledging physical and moral damage because it allows us to rebuild ourselves. I believe in resilience, even if the term is overused. Forgiveness is impossible without recompense, whatever its form.“

In addition, he writes: “I write to contribute to the collective consciousness so that men and women who use their power to satisfy their dominance instinct can no longer act with impunity. And so they finally cease, to the praise of their critics, to disguise these baser instincts as subtle subtleties, sublimated by the subtle perversity of morality. to put an end to predation.”

Catherine Breillat’s novel, released on April 14, 1999, according to the official synopsis, tells the story of “Marie’s story, torn between sex and feelings, between what she wants and what she loves. Or even a love story seen as a matter of power: “The boy you love enough to be faithful, he won’t cheat on you anymore, they’ll drive you crazy, it’s not that simple we’re cheating on them, it’s that they understand that we cheat on them we will run away.”

On August 28, 2024, Caroline Duce’s book The Predator (female name) edited by Albin Michel was published.