The Cinémathèque française canceled the mid-March screening of a film by Benoît Jacquot, under investigation for rape of a minor after the complaint filed by actress Judith Godrèche. “The Cinémathèque française is canceling the screening of the film Les Ailes de la colombe by Benoît Jacquot on Wednesday March 13 at 2 p.m.,” the institution, a temple of cinephilia located in the Bercy district of Paris, following information from Libération.
The screening of this 1980 film with Isabelle Huppert was to be followed by a meeting with the director of photography Caroline Champetier. She is one of the most sought-after cinematographers in French cinema and has filmed numerous times with Benoît Jacquot. She was still in charge of the image on her last film, Belle with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Guillaume Canet, which has no announced theatrical release date. The film’s distributor does not wish to comment on the subject.
Caroline Champetier will present two days later at the Cinémathèque Tout une nuit, a film by Chantal Akerman. Judith Godrèche filed a complaint against Benoît Jacquot, a figure of auteur cinema, also targeting the filmmaker Jacques Doillon.
This led to the opening of an investigation at the beginning of February into “rape of a minor under 15 years old by a person in authority, rape, violence by a partner, and sexual assault on a minor over 15 years old by a person in authority”, for facts which would have taken place between 1986 and 1992. They would have occurred from the meeting of Judith Godrèche, then aged 14, with Benoît Jacquot.