Penélope Cruz, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gael García Bernal Sign Polanski Petition

Actor Gael García Bernal, Academy Award-winning actress Penélope Cruz, veteran director Mario Monicelli, veteran screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr, and Academy Award-winning filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Ethan Coen are a few of the latest additions to the list of signatories demanding freedom for filmmaker Roman Polanski, currently being held by Swiss authorities.
Among the other new signatories of the petition organized by France’s Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD) are:
Author Ariel Dorfman; actor-screenwriter Buck Henry; composer Vangelis; actors Sylvia Kristel and Anne Consigny; filmmakers Fatih Akin, Juan Antonio Bayona, Djamel Bennecib, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Alain Berliner, Guillermo del Toro, Michel Deville, Sam Gabarski, Diane Kurys, Tonie Marshall, Brett Ratner, and Jerry Schatzberg; World Cinema Foundation director Kent [...]

Roman Polanski Petition

Veteran filmmakers Marco Bellocchio, Wim Wenders, and Claude Lelouch; Oscar winners Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Pedro Almodóvar; the French Film Academy; the Cannes Film Festival; and hundreds of other individuals and organizations have signed a petition demanding the release of Roman Polanski, who was arrested by Swiss police — at the behest of the American Justice Department — following his arrival at the Zurich airport on Sept. 26. Polanski was headed to the Zurich Film Festival, where he was to have received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 1978, Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful intercourse with a minor (13-year-old Samantha Gailey, now Geimer) at a Los Angeles court, but fled to France before he could be sentenced. His court [...]