An acclaimed French film director appeared in a Paris court on November 3, accused by four young actresses of forcing them to masturbate as part of their screen tests.
Jean-Claude Brisseau, credited with discovering Johnny Depp’s wife Vanessa Paradis, denies the charges, insisting that the ”erotic auditions” held between 1996 and 2001 for his 2002 feature Choses Secretes, were justified artistically and ”indispensable” to his work.
Brisseau (61), who cast a teenage Paradis in his 1989 film Noce Blanche, has won awards at Cannes twice and been nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival.
But the four actresses say he abused his authority to gain sexual favours. One told the court that Brisseau often asked her to masturbate in front of him, sometimes in public places. She said she did 20 or 30 such ”tests” between 1996 and 2001. Some sessions were filmed by the director. ”He said it was good to improvise all these things now, so as not to waste time on the set. And his eye was replacing the camera,” she said.
A lawyer for two of the women, Claire Doubliez, said her clients were afraid ”because they have broken the law of silence, and because it may look like they are complaining because they didn’t get big parts. They want the court to acknowledge that they were manipulated and sullied.”
The investigating magistrate’s report said the number of auditions, the fact they took place over several years, the conditions in which they were done and the fact that Brisseau masturbated in front of the actresses ”excludes all artistic or cinematographic motive”. Brisseau ”vehemently denied” all charges against him. — Â