In a damning investigation published by Elle, nine women reveal having been victims of the French producer. Alain Sarde is accused of harassment, sexual assault and rape.
On the eve of the launch of the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, the world of the 7th art once again splashed by a scandal in the movement of
Now 72 years old, the man to whom we owe Mulholland Drive by David Lynch and numerous films by famous directors such as Bertrand Blier, Jean-Luc Godard, Bertrand Tavernier, Georges Lautner, Anne Fontaine, Claude Sautet, Roman Polanski, Jacques Doillon or even Nicole Garcia, is accused of having taken advantage of his position as a major film producer to harass, sexually assault, and even rape several women, some of whom were minors at the time of the alleged acts.
In the different testimonies, it seems that the same operating mode emerges. The investigation thus reports that the victims would be young women who were starting their careers, sent by unscrupulous agents to this predator apparently well known in the industry. In several testimonies, there is talk of meetings given by Alain Sarde, during which there is often mention of a box of chocolate offered before a sexual assault, or even a rape. “Later, in the cinema world, I heard several women say about him: ‘If he gives you chocolates, get out of it!'”, confided a woman who was not old. only 15 years old when she claims to have dealt with Alain Sarde. “It was bestial! I still feel the pressure of his body on mine. He held me down and raped me,” she tells the magazine.
Contacted by Elle, producer Alain Sarde, for his part, said he was “outraged and devastated” by what he described as “allegations, all false”, his lawyer said. Alain Sarde “refutes with the greatest firmness and affirms that he has never used the slightest violence or coercion in his relationships with women whose consent has always been essential for him,” the lawyer further assured the magazine.
