French actor Judith Godrèche Thursday, February 8, accused director Jacques Doillon of sexually abusing her when she was 15, the second such charge she has made after alleging another director raped her while she was a minor.
French prosecutors opened a probe this week after Godrèche, now 51, accused filmmaker Benoît Jacquot of raping her during a six-year-long relationship that started when she was 14 and he was 25 years her senior. Godrèche's lawyer Laure Heinich said the actor had filed a complaint against both directors this week.
Doillon took advantage of her while directing her in one of his films when she was 15, she said on Thursday. He was 29 years older at the time. Doillon, 79, did not reply to a request for comment from Agence France-Presse. Jacquot, 77, firmly rejected the allegations against him in Le Monde.
In Doillon's 1989 film La fille de 15 ans (The 15 Year Old girl), Godrèche played a teenager whose boyfriend's father falls in love with her. Doillon had hired an actor to play the father, but at the start of the film shoot "he fired him and took his place," she told the France Inter radio broadcaster. "All of a sudden, he decides there will be a love scene, a sex scene between him and me," she said. "And we do 45 takes. I take off my jumper, I'm bare-chested, he's fondling me and French kissing me." Asked by France Inter if she was abused by the director, she agreed.
Doillon was in a relationship with British actress and singer Jane Birkin at the time, after she had left singer Serge Gainsbourg, and she was on set as an assistant. "What happened in Jane's house, in Doillon's office, nobody saw and I didn't tell anyone," Godrèche said, without elaborating. "But then on set, that was unbelievable," she said of the sex scene and the fact that no adult present stood up for her. "Jane is there behind the monitor and it's an extremely painful situation for her," she added. Birkin, who died last year, mentioned the incident in her 2019 memoir Post-Scriptum. "He'd kiss Judith Godrèche 20 times in a row asking me what the best take was. A real agony," she wrote.
French cinema has been rocked by allegations it has shrugged off sexism and sexual abuse for decades, and criticism that the arts have too long provided cover for abuse. Newly released footage of film star Gérard Depardieu making obscene comments sparked an uproar in December. That intensified after President Emmanuel Macron said the actor had become the target of a "manhunt."