Rosa von Praunheim: Germany's controversial 'gay film director'

The prolific filmmaker recently received a lifetime achievement award for more than 50 years of taboo-breaking movies largely centered on LGBTQ themes. After 150 films, his unconventional art is set to go on

When Rosa von Praunheim recently received the Saarbrücken Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis for Lifetime Achievement, he mockingly described it as a kind of "death Oscar." 

Having been recognized at Germany's preeminent festival for young filmmakers, the 77-year-old director showed off the self-deprecating wit that has marked his 50-year career of one of Germany's gay cinema pioneers.

150 films and counting

Widely recognized as Germany's best-known "gay film director," von Praunheim sees the moniker as a badge of honor: "I think that worldwide I am the one who has made the most films on gay subjects," he said, adding that his work has covered the gamut of gay, lesbian and trans subjects. He's proud of the roughly 150 films he's made, he says.

Von Praumheim was born Holger Radtke in 1942 in a prison in Riga, Latvia. His mother died shortly after the end of the war in a Berlin sanatorium. He was adopted, which he only discovered in 2000, and he only learned of the fate of his biological mother at age 64. She has been a subject in his films, along with many other aspects of his personal life.

He took on the name "Rosa" (pink in German) as a reminder of the pink triangle that the Nazis forced homosexuals to wear in the concentration camps. "Praunheim" refers to a district in Frankfurt where the director once lived.

Filmmaking was not von Praunheim's first passion, he told DW: "I studied painting, and I still paint, I still do exhibitions, that's a mainstay. I wrote, and I'm still writing. I like writing poems. I'm working on a novel, I write plays. Film joined the picture at some point.

 100 YEARS OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN FILM 

Different from the Others (1919)

Considered the very first film on homosexuality, "Different from the Others" was directed by Richard Oswald, who urged dropping Germany's Article 175, which made homosexuality a criminal offense. Pandemonium broke out at the film's premiere in a Berlin movie theater in 1919, but it wasn't prohibited because film censorship didn't yet exist. Article 175 was repealed decades later — in 1994

BREAKING TABOOS 

He first became known as an emerging director in the early 1970s, and he soon became the most important gay filmmaker in Germany next to Rainer Werner Fassbinder. From early on, the subject of homosexuality featured prominently in his artistic work, even more so than in Fassbinder's.

The film Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt ("It Is Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives") from 1971, about a gay man from the provinces who struggles to find sexual liberation in Berlin, marked a new beginning not only for German cinema, but for the gay rights movement in the country. The New York Times called the film "a militantly Marxist call for a end to homosexual oppression."

'It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives': the title says it all

In the period after the social upheavals of 1968, von Praunheim brought the subject of homosexuality into the mainstream in an unconventional way that upended taboos. He called on gay men to "get out of the restrooms and onto the streets!" and to publicly reveal their sexuality. While a large section of conservative society expressed reservations, von Praunheim became an emblem for the scores of gay rights groups that were subsequently formed in West Germany.

Advice for young filmmakers

At the Max Ophüls Preis film festival, von Praunheim not only received the lifetime achievement award but also gave a master class for a rising generation of young filmmakers. He is actively engaged in teaching activities both abroad and at home, where he is a professor in directing at the Film University Babelsberg.

Read more: Pride, film history — What 2019 means for the LGBT community

What does he believe is essential to succeed as a director today? "Discipline is part of it, of course, and that you passionately back what you do," von Praunheim said. "It doesn't happen by itself. You can't just sit there and then become famous. You have to be constantly engaged with the medium, have fun shooting and let your imagination run free."

But he also cautions young filmmakers that things have changed since he came of age as a filmmaker in the 1970s and 80s, saying that everything today had to be "much more audience-friendly." For filmmakers, that's "a big hurdle, because you can't experiment in the same way anymore."

Saarbrücken festival director Svenja Böttger, Rosa von Praunheim and his husband Oliver Sechting (L to R)

From strong women to gay serial killers

Alongside the exploration of homosexuality, von Praunheim's films often portray strong women.

"For a gay man, working with strong women is a strong identification. It's easy to put yourself in their shoes," he explains. He adds that these women have greater freedom through clothing and makeup and more ability to express their feelings than men are typically permitted by society. "With men, I was always a bit scared, boozing, football and war games and stuff," he said. But he believes that this has changed, "because the image of men itself has also changed," he explains.

'Bad gay guy': A scene from 'Darkroom,' von Praunheim's latest film

The director's latest film, Darkroom: Drops of Death, is a dark drama in which a gay serial killer targets gay men with his deadly poison. Once again, von Praunheim is breaking taboos: "After 50 years of emancipation you can afford to show a so-called bad gay guy."

Even at 77, retirement hasn't crossed the mind of von Praunheim. Filmmaking, writing, painting — all are included in a full list of plans and projects. He sees the lifetime achievement award only as a stopover.

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Berlin carries out first homeless census

Berlin's government wants to count the city's homeless population. Apart from helping to combat homelessness, the "Night of Solidarity" is to show that the German capital considers "homeless people part of our city."

Berlin is to become only the third city in the world, after New York and Paris, to attempt an accurate count of its homeless population.

A three-hour count on Wednesday night is part of a new city initiative to improve homeless policy in the German capital, a move charities and social workers have requested for years. Homelessness has been on the rise in Germany, according to at least one study published last year.

The "Night of Solidarity," the same title used in Paris, will see 3,700 volunteers, divided into teams of three to five, issued with laminated maps and sent off on predetermined routes through 617 specially-drawn up zones of the city.

The volunteers will count all the people they find sleeping rough, and carry out brief questionnaires about their age, gender, nationality, and how long they have been on the streets.

Details needed to provide help to homeless

The Night of Solidarity began with a choir named Different Voices of Berlin, which launched into a rousing song reminding the gathered reporters and volunteers, "If you look away, you don't see anything."

Mayor Michael Müller explained that the purpose of the count was to develop a less abstract homeless policy. 

"Of course we discuss with all the important institutions, or in the government, but I have to admit I often don't have an idea that it's about people who can't get access to the help that we offer.

"It's certainly thousands of people, and so far too many," he added. "We are dealing with the question of who lives on the streets. We want these numbers so that we can provide better and more individual help."

No time to hand out soup

The volunteer teams will each include a professional or a volunteer with some experience with homeless people, or some who have been homeless themselves. Ahead of the count, the volunteers were instructed in a code of conduct that underlines the importance of respect: They are not allowed to look inside any tents or huts they find, shine torches at people, take photos, or wake anyone up.

At the same, the volunteers' tasks are to be strictly limited: "We only have three hours time, and there will be no time for long counseling or giving out soup," said project director Klaus-Peter Licht at a press event a week before the count. For privacy reasons, reporters are also forbidden from watching the count.

Elke Breitenbach (center) says Germany needs more accurate data to guide policy

Read more: From sleeping bags to their own homes

Fuzzy stats and guesses

The project was instigated by Berlin's Ministry of Integration, Labor and Social Affairs, on a model piloted in Paris, which is carrying out its third count at the end of January.

Accurate statistics on homelessness are hard to ascertain. Like many cities, Berlin keeps figures on the number of people living in shelters, currently around 36,000, but it has no way of knowing how many people are actually sleeping rough.

"We don't have any numbers, we just have estimates," said Minister Elke Breitenbach. "And depending on where you look, say if you look around the Zoo Station, you'd get the feeling that we have an endless number of homeless people in this city."

Just as important, the project is also designed to get a more accurate demographic portrait of the homeless population, which is why the questionnaire is in 14 languages. According to official statistics, of the 36,000 people in shelters, 16% are women and more than half are from a non-EU country.

Berlin has a pilot project to help homeless people by giving them a place to live

"Homelessness is much more international nowadays, it's more female, and we are seeing more homeless people with a severe disability, and more older people," said Breitenbach.  "Because of that, we said we have to set up homelessness support in a way that it is adapted to the needs of homeless people so that it actually reaches people and is comprehensive."

Indeed, that was one of the results of the first Paris survey, which found that there were more homeless women than it had previously imagined, and quickly set up more spaces in shelters for homeless women. Last year, the Paris survey also found a 21% increase in the number of homeless, with some 600 people sleeping rough.

Read more: 'Duschbus' in Hamburg helps homeless stay clean

Where do homeless people live?

In addition, there are conflicting theories about where exactly in Berlin homeless people live: some people, the minister said, assume that they are more likely to stay in the city centers, where they have better chances of collecting bottles and begging, though others believe that, like many marginalized groups, they are increasingly being pushed to the outskirts.

"But we just don't know," said Breitenbach, before underlining that she hoped the count would only be the first of many, and inspire similar programs in other German and European cities.

The European dimension of the count cannot be underestimated: the fact that EU citizens are free to seek work anywhere in the bloc has, despite its economic advantages, led to more homelessness among non-Germans in Germany, as they have no right to claim social security.

Berlin, Breitenbach said, is trying to focus on helping the city's disadvantaged.

"The main thing," the minister concluded, "is that we want to show solidarity, and show that we consider homeless people part of our city." 

Berlin is already trying out pioneering strategies for combatting homelessness. Last year, the city started a three-year pilot project called "Housing First," which gives homeless people an apartment, with a rental contract, on an unconditional basis: that is, there is no obligation to take part in any type of therapy or back-to-work program. The project is mainly, but not only, aimed at long-term homeless people with psychological problems, or those struggling with addiction.

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Strikes stab at the heart of the Finnish model

Finns regularly vote themselves among the happiest in the world, with a healthy balance between work and home life. But a wave of strikes has exposed a far more complicated reality.

Finland has seen a wave of labor disputes over wage issues and working hours in recent months, which this week appear to be reaching crisis point. In December, ex-Prime Minister Antti Rinne resigned after his government came under pressure from a nationwide postal strike. Industrial action, rare in Finland, then spread to FinnAir, the national airline. Rinne was replaced by Sanna Marin, the youngest head of government in the world at 34, who now faces the same problems.

Finland's most important export industry could be shut down for weeks after 15,000 employees in  paper mills started a strike this week, while 6,000 workers from sawmills, plywood factories and other forestry operations planned to stop work for the start of the week. The Finnish Forest Industry Association (FFIF) has threatened to lock out workers in a dozen factories from February 10 if no agreement is reached by then. 

Meanwhile mechanical workers in the forestry industry are also set to begin strike action and another strike of white-collar workers in the chemical and technology industries was also due to begin on Monday, until Labor Minister Tuula Haatainen helped delay the industrial action for two weeks. The trade union Pro, announced on Sunday that 14,000 of its members would begin a two-week strike at major export corporations on January 27 unless a new contract was agreed by then. The companies affected by the Pro action include industrial giants such as ABB, Metso, Nokia, Outokumpu, Meyer Turku, Patria, Rautaruukki, Valmet and Wärtsilä. Unions Tehy, Super and JHL, which represent employees in the social and health care sectors, have all called for higher salary increases than workers in the export sector.

Finnish forestry accounts for a fifth of the country's goods exports and industrial action may also be felt in Germany, which is Finland's most important trading partner for paper and cardboard products 

The Industrial Union, which represents workers in the metals chemicals and wood products sectors, and two other unions, have said that about 100,000 workers will begin a three-day strike on Monday, closing production at companies including Nokian Tyres, stainless steel producer Outokumpu and Neste, which said 2,400 of its employees would be involved in the strike . The strike could have knock-on effects on healthcare, heating, emergency services and food distribution. 

The impact

Shutting down production plants in the forest industry would have the biggest impact on the domestic economy, but strikes at pharmaceutical companies and the oil refineries of Neste would also hurt.

"If the Porvoo and Naantali refineries sent out no fuel for two weeks, it'd have an impact on service stations, public transport and air traffic," Sami Ryynänen, the chief shop steward at the refinery of Neste in Porvoo, told the country's bestselling newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. "That's when Finland would come to a stop," he added. Neste accounts for around 25% of the retail sales of petrol and 40% of the retail sales of diesel in Finland. 

The Confederation of Finnish Industries, Finland's biggest employers' association, estimates the strikes will cost the companies a combined €500 million ($551 million) in lost revenue and has hit the wider economy to the tune of €200 million already. 

A flawed deal?

The strikes have started a debate among labor organizations over regulation introduced by former Finnish prime minister Juha Sipilä in 2017. Part of the law was the so-called Competitive Pact under which labor unions agreed to a clause that requires workers to put in an additional 24 hours of work annually without compensation.

Finland has a very high level of union membership, with 59% of the workforce belonging to one union or another. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 90% of the workforce is covered by collective bargaining, and agreements in any given sector apply to all workers in that sector whether or not they are members of a union.

"It has been a long part of the Finnish and larger Nordic tradition that the labor unions and trade associations are a very big part of this system," says political journalist Robert Sundman.

Finland has tried various strategies over the last few decades, one of the more interesting being the Working Hours Pact in 1996, which gave employees the ability to shift their working hours to suit their lifestyle by starting or ending their responsibilities three hours earlier or later than the standard work hours.

But despite such apparent imaginative solutions, Finland is not keen on EU plans to introduce a minimum wage across the bloc. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the move aims to help workers lacking union support. Several EU states have minimum wage laws, while Finland doesn't have a national minimum wage. Instead, the country has practiced collective bargaining since the 1970s, whereby employers and trade unions regularly negotiate wage agreements on the national and industry-specific level.

Collective bargaining at stake

Mikael Pentikäinen, the chief executive of the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, argues the current malaise is evidence of the nonfunctioning of the current system. "The right to agree differently is needed to make sure it's genuinely possible to bargain at the workplace, the importance of collective bargaining agreements is reduced and companies can pave the road to success through internal agreements," he said on Twitter.

Ilkka Oksala, head of labor market affairs at the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK), argues that the current dispute demonstrates that nothing related to collective bargaining agreements should be agreed centrally. "This should finally show everyone hankering after centralized income policy agreements that you should agree centrally on anything that is to be carried out in collective bargaining agreements. Labor market confederations originally agreed permanently on the competitiveness hours, but introducing them to bargaining agreements proved difficult also three years ago," he said.

Prime Minister Sanna Marin has stirred controversy in Finland and beyond with controversial proposals for shorter working hours aimed at introducing "the next step for us in working life"

Capital over labor?

A labor union study claims that the 2017 measure has benefited employers to the tune of nearly €6 billion. Unions are pushing to have the measure annulled, arguing that economic conditions have improved.

The tripartite deal involved the Sipilä government, unions and employer organizations shifting more of the burden for paying pensions, social security and unemployment contributions from employers to workers. The Confederation of Salaried Employees (STTK) argues this disproportionately benefits employers. "It has represented an annual transfer of billions of euros from workers to employers," says confederation chair Antti Palola.

But Vesa Rantahalvari of the business-backed EK says the competitiveness pact aimed to reduce the unit cost of labor by 5%. "It didn't quite get there, but major changes were introduced that resulted in improved competitiveness and employment," he noted.

Originally, the Sipilä government wanted to improve national competitiveness by 15%. The 5% was meant to come from the reallocation of social contributions and the addition of 24 unpaid hours of work annually. In addition, public sector workers had vacation pay reduced, a measure that ended in 2019.

Politics to the fore

The ruling coalition is made up of five parties, including Rinne's Social Democrats and the Center Party. It and coalition allies are trailing in the polls and could lose ground to the nationalist Finns Party, which came second in last April's election, just behind the Social Democrats.

Current prime minister Sanna Marin, meanwhile, is the most recent high-profile proponent of shortening the amount of time people work. Marin posited the idea of companies adopting a flexible six-hour day and a four-day workweek at a panel discussion before she became prime minister.

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Fresh mass protests against pension reform sweep France

Thousands across France have turned out for another day of protests against Macron's controversial pension reform plans. It's the eighth day of protests since early December.

Thousands took to the streets across France on Wednesday to protest Emmanuel Macron's controversial proposed pension reform.

Demonstrators convened in Paris, Marseille, Nantes, Rennes, Toulouse and Bordeaux for the eighth major day of protest since trade unions called a series of strikes in early December.

Blockades and strikes were reported at the port in Marseille, broadcaster Franceinfo reported.

In Toulouse, a branch of the Galeries Lafayette department store chain was occupied by demonstrators.

Lawyers on strike and feminist activists perform during a demonstration
 against pension reform plans in Paris as part of another day of nationwide strikes and protests.

In Paris, opponents of the pension reforms gathered at Place d'Italie in the south of the city and marched towards the Invalides area.

Public transport was broadly undisturbed, while the French railway company SNCF warned of possible difficulties using regional transit.

Read more: French prime minister makes concession to pension protest

Police were deployedin the capital to prevent rioting. Security forces had been the subject of criticism in recent weeks after instances of acting brutally towards protesters.

The violent clashes which broke out Tuesday between the police and the fire brigade during the 4,000-strong firefighters' rally caused outrage in France. The Paris police chief criticized the "very aggressive” stance of some of the firefighters who demonstrated for higher wages and pensions.

BRAV-M and anti-criminality (BAC) police brigades arrest people during a demonstration.

The turnout for Wednesday's demonstrations was considerably less than that of Friday's mass protest. The strike rate within the country's civil service was 0.58% on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Ministry of Public Accounts. The strike rate for the last mass protest on Friday was 4.4%, or roughly 249,000 people across the country.

Read more: France unveils controversial pension reforms

The French government wants to create a universal pension scheme which would replace 42 individual schemes. The new plan would also restrict privileges for individual professional groups.

Despite months of protests, the French government launched the watered-down pension reform bills on Friday after they were adopted in the Council of Ministers and this week began their journey through the National Assembly

Trump is presiding over 'the biggest strategic defeat for the United States since the early days of World War II' as European allies ignore his threats and back Huawei

Thomas Colson and Adam Bienkov
 

Donald Trump. Getty




President Donald Trump's attempts to pressure European allies into dropping their ties with the Chinese telecoms company Huawei have failed.

European countries appear set to join the United Kingdom in approving the company's continued role in the development of a 5G network on the continent.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich described Trump's failure a "the biggest strategic defeat for the United States since the early days of World War II."

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who sits on the House Foreign Relations Committee, said that "not even our closest ally Britain, with a Trump soulmate in Downing Street, listens to us anymore."

President Donald Trump's European allies appear set to ignore his threats and back Huawei's involvement in the development of a 5G network on the continent.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision this week to allow the Chinese telecoms company's involvement in 5G in Britain, despite multiple threats from Trump and his allies to withdraw security cooperation and impose trade penalties, is set to trigger a wave of similar decisions by other European leaders, Politico reported.

The development prompted one prominent Republican on Wednesday to label Trump's failure "the biggest strategic defeat for the United States since the early days of World War II."

With European allies also closing ranks on Trump's actions against Iran, the president is looking increasingly isolated on the world stage.
Europe and the UK ally against Trump
 

Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson. Getty

Trump had ordered his European allies to impose a blanket ban on Huawei's 5G involvement.

However, Johnson's decision provides cover for other European countries — many of whom are minded to allow Huawei to help build their own 5G networks — to defy Trump themselves.

Politico reported that European countries could copy the UK's new security policies granting Huawei a limited role while restricted it from sensitive sites such as nuclear power stations.

The European Union has drawn up recommendations for member states that stop short of banning Huawei.

"The EU's approach was inspired by the UK one," an EU diplomat told Politico, adding that Trump's call for a blanket ban "won't be the preferred choice for most" European countries.

Individual countries across the continent are likely to follow the UK's lead and allow Huawei a role in their future 5G networks, despite being on the end of intensive lobbying efforts from the Trump administration.

Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands are leaning toward allowing Huawei a role in future telecoms networks, while the French government confirmed in November that it was "not following the position of the United States" and refused to exclude Huawei from bidding for its 5G network.

Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the US House of Representatives, on Wednesday branded the development "the biggest strategic defeat for the United States since the early days of World War II."

"I think people have got to wake up and understand this is a huge failure of our government bureaucracies to respond to a challenge we've seen coming," he told the BBC.
—BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) January 29, 2020

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who sits on the House Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted on Tuesday that "America has never been weaker."

"We have never had less influence," he said. "Not even our closest ally Britain, with a Trump soulmate in Downing Street, listens to us anymore."

Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House, led criticism from within the president's own party.

"Tragic to see our closest ally, a nation Ronald Reagan once called 'incandescent with courage,' turn away from our alliance and the cause of freedom," she tweeted.

Europe's defiance of Trump over Huawei echoes a pattern seen after Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in January on Trump's orders.

Then, too, European leaders adopted a strikingly similar tone in their reactions, refusing to endorse Trump explicitly and warning against escalation in the Middle East.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ben Wallace, the UK's defense secretary, also called into question the strength of the relationship between their countries and the US in the weeks that followed.

The developments show that while the US continues to exert enormous lobbying power over policy in Europe, solidarity across the continent in the face of those lobbying efforts is acting as an increasingly powerful corrective.

---30---

Outrage as Roman Polanski's new film tops 'French Oscar' nominations

Issued on: 29/01/2020  

  

Director Roman Polanski, at the 2014 César awards. © Martin Bureau, AFP (Archive)
Text by:NEWS WIRES

Roman Polanski’s new film “An Officer and a Spy” topped the list of nominations on Wednesday for the “French Oscars”, the Cesars, sparking fury from feminists.

The controversial director has been wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl since 1978 and is persona non grata in Hollywood.

His period drama about the Dreyfus affair, which rocked France at the turn of the 20th century, is in line for 12 Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars.

The head of the French film academy Alain Terzian said it “should not take moral positions” about giving awards.

But their choice was swifty condemned by feminists and some film critics.

“If rape was an art, give all the Cesars to Polanski,” tweeted the French women’s group, Osez le feminisme (Dare to Be Feminist).

“By celebrating a fugitive rapist and child sex criminal, we silence the victims,” added the group, which said it would demonstrate outside the awards ceremony on February 28.

British film critic Caspar Salmon was equally scathing.

“The Cesar awards are literally inviting an actor who was a victim of sexual assault by a director when she was a child (Adele Haenel), and a director who sexually abused a child (Roman Polanski), to be in the same room together for a big celebration of film.”

The Cesar awards are literally - *LITERALLY* - inviting an actor who was a victim of sexual assault by a director when she was a child (Adele Haenel), and a director who sexually abused a child (Roman Polanski), to be in the same room together for a big celebration of film.— Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) January 29, 2020
Cinemas picketed

Haenel, who was nominated for best actress for her performance in "Portrait of a Lady on Fire", touched a nere last year by telling how she was sexually harassed from the age of 12 on her first film.v

French director Christophe Ruggia was charged with sexual assault on a minor earlier this month.

Polanski, 86, won both best director and the critics’ prize at the Venice film festival in August for "An Officer and a Spy", which has been a big hit at the French box office despite a wave of protests.

Some screenings had to be cancelled after feminist protesters invaded or blockaded cinemas.

The publicity campaign for the film was also halted after French photographer Valentine Monnier claimed that she had also been raped by the director in 1975.

Monnier, an 18-year-old model and actress at the time, said Polanski tried to give her a pill as he beat her "into submission" at his Swiss chalet.

Polanski “absolutely denied” assaulting Monnier, pouring scorn on her story.

“Obviously I have no memory of it because it is false,” he told Paris Match magazine.

Uproar

The director - who sparked uproar at Venice by comparing his “hounding” to the anti-Semitic persecution Dreyfus suffered - blamed the disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein for his woes.

He said Weinstein had tried to brand him a “child rapist” to stop him winning an Oscar in 2003 for “The Pianist”.

Terzian strongly defended the French academy’s right to honour Polanski’s new film.

“Unless I am wrong, 1.5 million French people have gone to see his film. Go ask them,” he shot back when asked if the academy should be celebrating Polanski

Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin, the star of Polanski’s new film, is the hot favourite to lift best actor in a race that also includes Vincent Cassel and Reda Kateb for the autism drama “The Specials” and Daniel Auteuil for “La Belle Epoque”.

“Les Miserables”, a tough drama set in the poor and restive poor suburbs of Paris - which is also in the running for a best foreign language Oscar - picked up 11 Cesar nominations, just behind Polanski’s film.

Ladj Ly’s film is also battling against Polanski and “By the Grace of God”, Francois Ozon’s film about clerical child sex abuse, in the best film and best director categories.

“La Belle Epoque” also got 11 nominations, one ahead of Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”.

The Polanski controversy quickly went to the top of trending topics on French social media, with many comparing the tolerance the director enjoys from the film industry to that granted until recently to the disgraced veteran writer Gabriel Matzneff, who had written for decades about his sexual adventures with adolescents.

Matzneff, who is being investigated by French police, said Wednesday that he regretted his sex tourism trips to Asia, claiming that at the time “no one ever said it was a crime”.

(AFP)

Priests accused of sex abuse in religious order shut by Vatican

Issued on: 29/01/2020 

Rome (AFP)

Nine members of a religious order that was abruptly shuttered by the Vatican are under investigation for sex assault, the dioscese confirmed Wednesday, after allegations emerged linking the group to the abuse of two young brothers.

Prato Bishop Giovanni Nerbini, who reported allegations against priests and lay members of the now defunct Disciples of the Annunciation community to police, pledged the church's cooperation in the case.

The siblings were boys at the time of the suspected abuse, but came forward to denounce it as adults.

The Vatican dissolved the diocesan-approved association in December without mentioning abuse.
Nerbini's predecessor had reported the allegations to the Vatican, rather than the police, sparking an internal investigation into the community.

Catholic clergy are not obliged to report child sex abuse in Italy, to the frustration of victims and support groups who have long accused the Church of covering up alleged crimes and simply moving suspected predators to other dioceses.

The community's founder Giglio Gilioli, 73, was among those under investigation, according to the Nazione regional daily.

© 2020 AFP

French ice skating coaches face rape claims

Issued on: 29/01/2020 

Paris (AFP)

Former world bronze medal winning skater Sarah Abitbol was at the forefront on Wednesday of new revelations about sexual abuse in French sport.

In a new book published on Wednesday and in an interview with the newspaper L'Obs, Abitbol, a 10-time French champion and bronze medal winner in the pairs at the 2000 world championships, accused her ex-coach Gilles Beyer of raping her between 1990 and 1992 when she was between the ages of 15 and 17.

Abitbol's accusations came on the day that sports daily L'Equipe ran a lengthy report into sexual abuse in skating, swimming and tennis in France.

Under the headline "The End of Omerta", L'Equipe leans on the stories of three other skaters who accuse Beyer and two other coaches, Jean-Roland Racle and Michel Lotz, of abuse and rape when they were minors.

The coaches have either denied the allegations or declined to comment.

The report comes a week after French tennis coach Andrew Geddes was jailed for 18 years for raping four underage players.

"He (Beyer) started to do horrible things leading to sexual abuse and I was raped at 15," said Abitbol, now 44, in a video interview with L'Obs.

"It was the first time a man touched me."

Another skater Helene Godard accused Beyer, who was French national champion in 1978, and Racle of sexual abuse when she was a minor.

- Investigation -

According to L'Equipe, Beyer, who continued his career as director of the French teams and national coach, was the subject of two investigations, one by the sports ministry, in the early 2000s.

After the second inquest, the ministry terminated his contract as a technical advisor but he remained close to the skating federation, whose president Didier Gailhaguet declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Abitbol says that after she retired she mentioned her claims against Beyer to the then Minister of Sport, Jean-Francois Lamour, who allegedly replied: "Yes, we have a file on him, but we're going to close our eyes."

The former minister told L'Obs he did not remember this conversation.

"I understood that I was faced with an organised silence," said Abitbol. "Basically, everyone said to me 'Take your meds and be quiet!' I obeyed. I took my meds and I fell silent."

L'Equipe also ran a separate report into sexual aggression in French swimming during the 1980s while former tennis player Isabelle Demongeot accused her coach Regis de Camaret of rape.

At the end of 2019, an investigation by the collective of journalists We Report shed light on "major dysfunctions" at different levels, citing 77 cases and at least 276 victims, mostly children under the age of 15, across 28 different sports.

Minister of Sport Roxana Maracineanu did not comment directly on these cases but told Radio France on Wednesday that controls on coaches needed to be tighter.

"We are talking about paedophilia, clearly about inadmissible things in society," she said.

"In sport it is even less acceptable since parents, each year, confidently entrust their children without asking themselves this question. They need to be able to continue doing that."

The ministry is organising a major conference on February 20 to discuss the issue.

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© 2020 AFP