Actors Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel, Isabelle Adjani, and Elsa Zylberstein; filmmakers Danièle Thompson, Steven Soderbergh, Neil Jordan, Sam Mendes, Taylor Hackford, and Mike Nichols; formerly persecuted writer Salman Rushdie; author Milan Kundera; and stylist Diane von Furstenberg are among those who have signed another petition demanding freedom for 76-year-old filmmaker Roman Polanski, currently being held at a Swiss prison while awaiting word from local authorities whether he’ll be extradited to the United States on a charge of having sex with a minor in the late 1970s.
In his journal, La Règle du jeu, writer Bernard-Henri Lévy has asked for signatures supporting Polanski’s release. Lévy’s petition reads:
Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.
He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.
Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.
We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it.
Additionally, more than 100 personalities from the world of film, art, and literature – among them Pedro Almodóvar, Woody Allen, Jeanne Moreau, Wong Kar-Wai, Alfonso Cuarón, Fanny Ardant, Monica Bellucci, and David Lynch – have signed a petition organized by France’s Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD), which also demands that Polanski be released from custody.
Those who have thus far signed Lévy’s petition are:
Isabelle Adjani
Antoine Aronin
Paul Auster
Morgane Beauverger
Candice Belaisch-Goldchmit
Yamina Benguigui
Pascal Bruckner
Jessika Cohen
Philippe Corbé
Jean-Paul Dayan
Katarina De Meulder
Arielle Dombasle
Nathalie Faucheux
Corinne Figuet
Pierre Forciniti
Louis Garrel
Albert Gauvin
Johanna Gozlan
Davide Homitsu Riboli
Taylor Hackford
Isabelle Huppert
Neil Jordan
Thierry Kamami
Milan Kundera
Gaelle Lancien
Claude Lanzmann
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Sam Mendes
Camille Meyer
Patrick Mimouni
Yann Moix
Mike Nichols
Sandra Nicolier
Marie Nieves Perez Neël
Salman Rushdie
Carine Sarna
Ysabelle Saura Del Pan
William Shawcross
Olivier Soares Barbosa
Steven Soderbergh
Nil Symchowicz
Danièle Thompson
Eugenia Varela Navarro
Diane von Furstenberg
Margaret Walker
Elsa Zylberstein
22 comments
This pervert is disgusting. And every name on that list. They all need to be in jail. If you don’t believe in rape then go to prison and see how you feel when it happens to you. Hollywood is disgusting. That’s why I am not there anymore.
It is appalling and offensive that these signatories dare to state that “good sense” and “honor” demand Polanski’s release, when it is so obvious that anyone who signs this petition is entirely bereft of either good sense or honor. How any person can support a pedophile and child rapist and still sleep at night is beyond my understanding. Shame on Sam Mendes; he has a little stepdaughter who will be 13 in 5 or 6 years; will he be okay with someone raping her? Shame on all of these people.
Show that you REALLY CARE about children, not just when sex is involved. Children are abused every day in other ways. Do you give a damn??
If you’re not just a bunch of hypocrites, then sign this petition of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The US and Somalia are the only two countries in the world that haven’t signed it yet!!
theirc.org/campaign/urge-president-obama-take-action-childrens-rights
To Bob :
This newspaper (if any!)is not authorised to publish legal document that belongs to court. How they could obtain them? How that publication is authentic to court document? And why any court document might be going to public!?
Madam Prostakova (and any other Polanski defender):
I would invite you to study this article to better understand the crimes of the child rapist you are defending:
latimes.com/news/local/la-me-polanski25-2009oct25,0,5115267.story
To: Lili “dis apppointed”
First, legal paper never stated any terminology
as rape and etc… The case of mr.Polanski so called “crime” is very uncertain one….
Without any good knowledge of case normal person
would not make a judgment and be accused in defamation… That was happen with “Vanity Fair” magazine – under the court this magazine paid 50.000 pound to Polanski for defamation.
I would like to advise you to study Schopenhauer’s “On human nature” and “On the basis of morality” to better understand the world
To: “bluecoua”
Dear friend, you are confused… Of course, profession makes an influence on psychical
tune person and must be taken in account…
Of course, the law is equal for all…
But the law does not act automatically.
Where, when and how that or another incident happened to be.Implementation the law is different.
Not because one is artist, another is doctor, another is teacher.Circumstances of Polanski’case are very uncertain in details…
You listened “something from someone” but do not know what really happened in that hollywoodian adult soiree 31 years ago. ou wasn’s there.
If creative talent justifies a Get Out of Jail Free card, what level of misdeed should other directors’ talent let them get away with? Directors’ Get Out of Jail Free Card survey
I will never…NEVER watch a single film of those who signed the petition. NEVER!
Sure, we’ll all boycott classics such as The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Story of Women, The Story of Adele H, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, Annie Hall, Manhattan, The Crying Game, Traffic, Sex Lies and Videotape, The Unberable Lightness of Being, etc. etc. etc.
We should also boycott the Academy and the Oscars, as they gave the child rapist an award not that long ago. And the European Film Academy, which gave Polanski another award not that long ago. And the Zurich Film Festival, and the Marrakech Film Festival, and the Boston Society of Film Critics, and the Cannes Film Festival (Golden Palm for The Pianist), and the French Film Academy, and France (where he was born), and Switzerland (where the child rapist spent summers in Gstaad without anyone bothering him), and Poland (where his parents were born), and Harrison Ford (who worked with the rapist in Frantic), and Emmanuelle Seigner (who married the rapist), and and and and and.
And yeah, sure, an eye for an eye, a rape for a rape. Let’s hope the boys do Polanski in prison. Let’s hope they enjoy it, too. Perhaps the guards can join in. And let’s hope they use condoms.
Now, what next? Who’s the law abiding citizen who’s going to write wishing that Polanski’s own children get raped?
Hey, justice is justice. An eye for an eye. A rape for a rape.
Let’s make the world a better place.
Thank you all for posting your names so big in “lights”!
Your support of this criminal will force us law abiding citizens to boycott your work/films in the furture. We know where you stand & now you know where we do. Polanski deserves to be in prison for his crimes & hopefully, he will end up in a US one very soon. Maybe the boys in the prison will do to him what they do to all the pedophiles.
He raped a child. PERIOD. He pleaded guilty then ran from his sentence. There is no wondering if he did it he admitted it. Regardless of what he did since then he has to serve his time or that means that anyone who commits a crime and runs from the law and if they make good enough movies or stay way from the law long enough they do not owe their debt to society. Not only should he face the sentence of the rape but they should charge him for running and give him a few years to think about it.
I was in Europe when I heard the good news.
I am so pleased that this man will be brought to justice. Shame on these list that do not care about a man drugging and having sex with a 13 year old female. It is wrong, even in the most liberal parts of Europe to drug and have sex with a 13 year old female or male.
I hope he serves his time like a common criminal.
Woody Allen signed this, because Woody Allen likes to have inappropriate sex with young women also. Woody Allen is in a sexual relationship with his stepdaughter of Mia Farrow. He is a great film maker too, but also a vile suspect.
Perhaps this is what they meant
filmreference.com/Directors-Pe-Ri/Polanski-Roman.html
directed first feature, Knife in the Water, 1962, denounced by Polish Communist Party chief Gomulka, funding for subsequent films denied, moved to Paris, 1963;
As a product of a socialist state and its official film school at Lodz, he was expected to use his filmmaking skills to advance the appropriate social consciousness and ideology sanctioned by the government. However, Polanski’s first feature, Knife in the Water, drew the ire of the Communist Party and was denounced at the Party Congress in 1964 for showing the negative aspects of Polish life.
He was never “a survivor of Stalinist persecutions in Poland”. How did they come up with such nonsense?
Stop the religious persecution!
Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of charitable and religious work with the young, Father Belarki now sleeps in prison.
He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.
Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions of the Catholic priesthood in Poland, the Reverend Bishop Belarki risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.
We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this most devout catholic into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it.
I ask you- Would this happen to any other Catholic priest?
“Apprehended like a common terrorist”? No, apprehended like a child rapist.
Being good at telling actors where to stand should not afford him any leniency in this case.
He raped a 13 year old child. All these people talk of Polanski’s great work and tragic history as rational for their support. What about this victims tragic history caused by this criminal, this terrorist? What if this rape did NOT occur and this child could have contributed to the greater good of humankind?! NO one talks about her at all, what she could have achieved. Who are these people to make her value as a human being so much less!? They continue to victimize all rape and abuse victims by their self absorbed support of this vicious rapist.
I am so disappointed to all these film directors, actors, actresses, fashion designers etc. whose work I’ve admired for so long. Their questionable moral stand in support of Polanski does not perhaps change the fact that they are talented people, but it does change the respect I’ve held for them as artists and as individuals. I simply do not understand how they don’t see how much this affects the public opinion about them. Seeing that Sam Mendes or Salman Rushdie supports Roman Polanski does not make me think better of Polanski, but it makes me think less of Mendes and Rushdie. Celebrity status can’t change everything and a rape is one such thing. Money doesn’t make the experience go away no matter how much this Hollywood elite would like it to do exactly so.
Read the unsealed court documents with the 13 year old victim’s account of the multiple rapes by Polanski for yourself: thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskicover1.html
Read Polanski’s post arrest cavalier quotes about everyone wanting to “f*** young girls” including the the jury and the judge here: blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/michaeldeacon/100011795/roman-polanski-everyone-else-fancies-little-girls-too/
“Apprehended like a common terrorist?”
The douchiness of such comments from “intellectuals” like BHL is palpable. Fortunately the French public is much smarter than he is. I hope none of the petition signatories has a 13 year-old daughter – or son for that matter.
There are so many names on there that I thought better of.
Obviously they feel that if you’re talented and have a tragic history you deserve to be forgiven for running away from punishment for your crimes.