The French-Polish film-maker Roman Polanski will be tried in France on Tuesday over allegations that he defamed a British actor who accused him of sexual abuse in the 1980s.
The 90-year-old is wanted in the US over the rape of a 13-year-old in 1977 and faces several other accusations of alleged sexual assault dating back decades and past the statute of limitations – all claims he has rejected.
The director – whose lengthy career includes his Oscar-winning films Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist – fled to Europe in 1978.
Polanski is not due to appear in court, his lawyers said.
His accuser, Charlotte Lewis, 56, is expected to be present.
In 2010, Lewis accused Polanski of sexually assaulting her “in the worst possible way” in 1983 when she was in Paris for a casting, aged 16. She appeared in his 1986 film Pirates.
The film-maker, who was born in France, said it was a “heinous lie” in a 2019 conversation with Paris Match magazine.
According to Paris Match, he pulled out a copy of a 1999 article in the News of the World, and quoted Lewis as saying in it: “I was fascinated by him, and I wanted to be his lover.”
Lewis, who said the quotes attributed to her were not accurate, filed a complaint for defamation, causing Polanski to be charged automatically under French law.
“Discrediting and defaming [people] is an integral part of the Polanski system, and this is what Charlotte Lewis is very bravely calling out,” her lawyer, Benjamin Chouai, told AFP.
Polanski’s lawyer, Delphine Meillet, said there had been no defamation in the Paris Match article. “Polanski has the right to defend himself publicly, as does the woman who accuses him,” she said.
His defence lawyers have called on Stuart White, who wrote the 1999 News of the World article, to appear as a witness during the trial.
White worked as a US correspondent for the now-defunct tabloid before becoming a screenwriter.
The News of the World, which has repeatedly been accused of libel, closed in 2011 after its employees were accused of phone hacking.
Lewis said she decided to speak out in 2010 to counter suggestions from Polanski’s legal team that the 1977 case was an isolated incident.
She spoke in the Los Angeles offices of Gloria Allred, a high-profile attorney who has also represented women accusing the US producer Harvey Weinstein, the actor Bill Cosby and the former US president Donald Trump.
France, Switzerland and Poland have refused to extradite Polanski to the US. Plans for Polanski to preside over the César awards, the French equivalent of the Oscars, were dropped in early 2017 under pressure from feminist groups.
Between 2017 and 2019, four other women came forward with claims that Polanski abused them in the 1970s, three of them as minors. He has denied all of the allegations.
Among them, the California artist Marianne Barnard accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1975 after asking her to pose naked when she was 10 years old.
At the 2020 Césars ceremony, the actor Adèle Haenel walked out in protest at Polanski receiving an award for his film An Officer and a Spy.
The director has in recent years kept a low profile. The premiere for his latest film, The Palace, took place in Venice without him last summer.
The defamation trial comes as the French cinema industry reels from accusations that it has too long provided cover for abuse. At this year’s César awards, the actor Judith Godrèche denounced “impunity” in the film industry, after accusing two directors of raping and sexually assaulting her as a teenager.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
