This year’s Venice Film Festival has become the last battleground, so far, in the ongoing war that is #metoo. The program for this year’s festival includes the latest films by Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. The two are old men, 87 and 90 years old. They have been hailed as two of the most important directors in film history. And they are both, in the eyes of many, sex offenders. DEMONSTRATED: About twenty demonstrators, who accused the Venice Film Festival of giving free rent to abusers, protested during the premiere of Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance”. Photo: Reuters During the film festival, banners have appeared in several places on the festival island Lido. They accuse the festival management of welcoming rapists. And during the premiere of Woody Allen’s latest film, the thriller “Coup de Chance”, twenty loud protesters appeared at the red carpet. They had painted red hands on their bare torsos, as if to imitate the handprints of an abuser. They declared that they would be the voice of the voiceless. Something that is often lost in the debates about Polanski and Allen and the demands that the industry shun them is that their stories are very different. Roman Polanski has confessed that he gave a thirteen-year-old alcohol and pills in 1977, then had sex with her. He has been convicted of assault in the United States, but fled the country before he could serve his sentence. An interesting side of the story is that the victim, Samantha Geimer, later came out and said that Polanski had been punished too harshly, and among other things allowed herself to be interviewed by the director’s current wife, actress Emmanuelle Seigner. But that doesn’t change what happened that day in 1977. ON THE RUN: Roman Polanski was convicted of raping a 13-year-old in 1977, and escaped from the United States before he could serve his sentence. Photo: AFP Woody Allen has neither been charged nor convicted. In 1992, he was accused of abusing his then seven-year-old adopted daughter by his ex-girlfriend, actress Mia Farrow. The adopted daughter, Dylan, has personally come forward with the same accusations after she became an adult. But the story is complicated. A team from Yale-New Haven Hospital investigated the case. They concluded that Dylan had not been the subject of abuse, and that her explanation had been manipulated. This was in line with Allen’s explanation, which was that the accusations were Farrow’s attempt to get revenge. The charges came a day a few months after Farrow discovered that Allen had a sexual relationship with her young adopted daughter from a previous marriage, Soon-Yi Previn. Allen and Previn married in time, and the marriage lasts to this day. OUT IN PUBLIC: Dylan Farrow has personally made the abuse allegations against her stepfather, Woody Allen, after she became an adult. Photo: Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini Mia Farrow’s side disputed the report. When Allen later sued for custody of Dylan and two other children, he was described in strongly negative terms by the judge. The judge felt that Allen’s behavior towards Dylan had been highly inappropriate and that she should be protected from him. The state attorney in Litchfield, Connecticut, said the same year that he would have had grounds to accuse Allen of abuse, but that he chose not to for the sake of the child himself. Another of Allen and Farrow’s adopted sons, Moses Farrow, later came out harshly against his mother. Moses said publicly that he himself had been in the house with Allen and Dylan on the day the abuse was supposed to have taken place, and that it could not have happened the way she describes it. SUPPORTS DYLAN: Mia Farrow and her son, journalist Ronan Farrow, have both come out hard against Woody Allen in public. Ronan Farrow is Allen’s only biological child. Photo: AFP This is how the position war has been for many years. But the environment, the audience, if you will, has changed. Before 2017 and #metoo, it was pretty easy to shrug your shoulders and say “nobody knows” and continue to get excited by the movies of men like Allen and Polanski. It was, of course, the most convenient thing to do. But then came the big showdown with men stepping over boundaries. Suddenly it was no longer possible to log out. This was a huge relief for women who had fought for years to be believed, only to be told to remain silent. STARSHOT: When Mia Farrow was one of Hollywood’s most promising young stars, she was married to singer and actor Frank Sinatra. Photo: Ap But the requirement to react could also be there in situations where the testimonies cracked. Where it was actually very difficult to know. In the case of Woody Allen, the world had to decide, and it decided that he was guilty. No actor with respect for their own reputation now agrees to what they once would have stood in line to get: A role in an Allen film. Festival director Alberto Barbera, who invited Allen and Polanski, has simply declared that he is “festival director, not judge”. This is how he becomes a spokesman for a view that is still more common in the European film industry than in the American one: It is the art that is important, not the artist. CONTROVERSIAL ATTENDANCE: Filmmaker Woody Allen walks the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival with his wife, Soon-Yi Previn. The demonstrators who had come forward do not appear in the picture. Photo: YARA NARDI / Reuters / NTB / Reuters Such a position would have been easy to get away with, perhaps as recently as ten years ago. Now the counter-question would come immediately: Does it mean that a person can do anything, as long as he makes good films? At the same time, it is easy to imagine what would have been the reaction to a festival manager who demanded some kind of sexual misconduct certificate: Is it the job of the festivals to pass moral judgments on the directors? “Coup de Chance” has so far been well received by the critics. And Woody Allen has said that it might be his last film. It may be that there are some festival managers out there who are breathing a sigh of relief at that news.
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Everyone has an opinion about the abuse allegations against Woody Allen. Very few of them know what they are talking about. – Speech
