French directors Benoit Jacquot (“Farewell, My Queen”) and Jacques Doillon (“The Little Gangster”) were summoned by police on July 1 for questioning in connection with complaints filed by actor Judith Godreche on Feb. 8. The two directors were taken in custody by the Juvenile Protection Brigade, according to the AFP.
Godrèche lodged a rape complaint against Jacquot and accused him of “predation” and “violent rape of a minor under 15 years old committed by a person in authority.” She met Jacquot in 1986, when she was 14 years old (the director was then 39) on the set of his movie “Les Mendiants,” and began a relationship with him which went on for six years. She also starred in his 1990 film “La Desenchantée.
” The offences were alleged to have taken place between 1986 and 1992. Jacquot has denied all of Godrèche’s accusations. The director’s attorney, Julia Minkowski, told Variety that Benoît Jacquot “had requested to be heard since the beginning of the investigation.
He will finally be able to express himself before authorities.” Minkowski also noted that the Paris prosecutor had “refused to give him access to the files of the procedure, despite the continued attacks on the presumption of innocence.” Doillon, meanwhile, has been accused by Godreche of two counts of sexual assault in the 1980’s when she was a minor.
Godreche claimed the sexual assault happened at the home that Doillon shared with his then partner Jane Birkin, durin.
