On Tuesday, February 6, 2024, the 51-year-old actress Judith Godreche filed a lawsuit against the famous French director, Benoît Jacquot, accusing him of raping her when she was a teenager, according to AFP.

The news comes as French cinema is rocked by allegations that the art world has been covering up sexism and sexual abuse for decades.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Judith Godreche (@judithgodreche1)

In January, the actress accused the director -known from the films “Casanova and Last Love”– that he manipulated her into a romantic relationship as a vulnerable underage actress. She was 14 years old and he was 39, while she also accused the country’s artistic world of covering up her abuse.

French newspaper Le Monde, which broke the story, said Jacquot “vehemently” denies the allegations.

The relationship between the two began in the spring of 1986, when the actress was just 14 years old, and ended in the early 1990s. She said that remained “in his hands” for six yearsstarring in two films he directed, ‘Les Mendiants’ in 1988 and ‘La Desenchantee’ in 1990.

He decided to speak, after discovering that he himself had been bragging about their relationshipwhile claiming that the cinema provided a “cover-up” for her, in a 2011 documentary.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Judith Godreche (@judithgodreche1)

“I puked”, Godreche told TV channel TMC. And he added: “Consent doesn’t exist when you’re 14. He didn’t seduce me, but he manipulated me.”

Benoit Jacquot, director with more than 50 films to his credit, has said thathe must be “in love” with his actresses to film them. He has collaborated with big names such as Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert, but also with Godreche and Virginie Ledoyen. In 2015, he described his job as “pushing an actress across a threshold”, and has stated that “the best way to do all of that is to be in the same bed”.