“By now everyone knows he hasn’t been tried“, explains the director of almond trees about his actor, under indictment for rape and violence.
Actress and director Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi on Friday denounced a “media lynching» after the publication of a survey of the newspaper Release on the actor Sofiane Bennacer, on the poster of his film The Almond Trees and indicted for acts of rape and violence.
“To this day everyone knows that he has not been tried, and such a process is, in my opinion, a pure media lynching, a process very far from a desire to inform objectively and impartially” , the film’s director wrote in a statement.
My producers expressed fears and reluctance, but I told them that these rumors didn’t stop me and that I couldn’t consider making the film without him.
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
The actress and director – who would be the “companion” of the actor according to Release and The Parisian – also confirms having had “knowledge” of the “rumors” which the young actor was the subject of during filming. “My producers expressed fears and reluctance, but I told them that these rumors did not stop me and that I could not consider making the film without him”, she added, indicating that she had been “artistically impressed by Sofiane Bennacer from the first second of the casting” of his movie.
The producers “trusted me, in the respect they cultivate for the artistic choices of their directors. I thank them, and take full responsibility for my choice. Later, we learned that a complaint had been filed,” she explains again. And to say “indignant that a newspaper like Release can trample the presumption of innocence to such an extent”.
On Instagram, Carla Bruni, the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy and sister of the director, had herself expressed her doubts about the investigation of Release. “Without the presumption of innocence, all justice is random, debatable, possibly corrupt. Libé has been giving us moral lessons for 40 years, but obviously the presumption of innocence is completely foreign to him. she considered.
Two indicted for rape and one for violence
Friday morning, Patrick Sobelman, one of the film’s two producers The Almond Trees assured that the production knew nothing of these facts before hiring him. Revelation of the latest film by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Sofiane Bennacer, 25, who claims her innocence, is the subject of several indictments. Two for acts of rape on two ex-companions as well as a third “indictment for violence against a spouse”. As part of a fourth complaint filed by another ex-girlfriend who denounced acts of rape, Sofiane Bennacer was placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness.
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