When the Venice Film Festival competition line-up was announced – with only two films by women included – there was widespread shock that a film by Roman Polanski could be part of the mix.
J’Accuse (An Officer and a Spy), a meticulous retelling of the 1895 Dreyfus case in France – in which a Jewish army officer was convicted of treason on the flimsiest of evidence – was screened with full red-carpet honours on Friday night.
Polanski’s The Pianist won the Palme D’Or in Cannes and three Oscars in 2003, but those were different days. Since #metoo, he has been stripped even of his membership of the Academy.
“I can’t believe Venice pulled this shit again,” said one female film-maker quoted anonymously in the Hollywood Reporter. “Not only do they basically snub women, but then they put Polanski in competition. I think the message they are sending is loud and clear: they want to continue celebrating people who have been convicted or accused of sexual assault.”
Last year, Venice became the last of the major festivals to sign up to the so-called 50-50 by 2020 pledge to support women’s film-makers. A year later, festival director Alberto Barbera, is playing host to a film by Polanski, who was arrested in 1977 for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl and has been a fugitive from American justice for over 40 years.
Read the article by Stephanie Bunbury in The Sydney Morning Herald.