A deep conviction: why did Olivier Durandet want the film banned?

An intimate conviction: the Jacques Viguier trial

On February 6, 2019, the film An intimate conviction comes out in French cinemas. Directed by Antoine Rimbault, it returns to the Suzanne Viguier case, news that made headlines, nineteen years earlier in Toulouse.

A quick reminder of the facts:

On February 27, 2000, Suzanne Blanch, wife of Jacques Viguier, mysteriously disappears. Suspicions soon fell on her husband after accusations from Suzanne Viguier’s lover, Olivier Durandet, of which he has been attending since 1998. But after an investigation and nine months of imprisonment, Jacques Viguier was released due to lack of sufficient evidence.

After two trials, one of which is on appeal, he is definitively acquitted by the court of Albi on March 20, 2010. During the latter he was defended by Éric Dupond-Moretti. Suzanne Viguier was never found. And the mystery surrounding his disappearance remains unsolved.

In An intimate convictiondirector Antoine Rimbault decided to include an imaginary character, that of Nora, played by Marina Foïs. Convinced of Jacques Viguier’s innocence after attending the trial, she will be able to convince a bar tenor (played by Olivier Gourmet) to defend him in his second appeal trial. Together they will lead a fierce fight against injustice. But as the noose tightens around the one everyone accuses, Nora’s search for the truth turns into obsession.

Olivier Durandet wanted to ban the film

Director Antoine Rimbault tried to remain extremely faithful to the reality of the trial. He also chose not to change the names of the protagonists. Furthermore, we can also hear it in the film real recordings from listening. In particular by Olivier Durandet. An intrusion into his private life that the latter couldn’t stand, and which led him to want to ban the film.

Thus, in February 2019, Olivier Durandet asked his lawyer for a subpoena the producer and distributor of the film in court. He denounced a false portrayal of himself and felt that the film had been “constructed to prove his guilt”. He also denounced that the wiretaps had been cut to make him the culprit. In the subpoena (via The shipment), the lawyer wrote:

The prejudice against Mr. Olivier Durandet is evident since (…) it exposes him in an unfavorable light (…) Its protagonist, Marina Foïs who leads the investigation, states several times that the culprit is the lover. This movie makes the lover the culprit. We use listening to build a scenario. The viewer knows that in this case, for the Albi appeal trial, 250 hours of audio recordings were added to the hearing of the president of the Assize Court. In the film we hear 8 minutes of these interceptions. And the rest?

Finally, on February 22, 2019, the XVII Chamber of the High Court of Paris decided not to ban the film. Second The Parisiann, Olivier Durandet requested compensation of 50,000 euros for each day of broadcast observed.

The film’s distributor also sued Olivier Durandet concealment of counterfeiting. He had in fact produced in court two pirated copies ofAn intimate convictionone of which he had made himself by asking an usher to film it in a cinema.

Source: Cine Serie

Ray

Ray Ortiz is a journalist at Gossipify, known for his coverage of trending news and current events. He is committed to providing readers with accurate and unbiased reporting, and is respected for his ability to keep readers informed on the latest news and issues.