FRANCE
HuffPost
March 1, 2020
By Cole Delbyck
Numerous actors walked out of France’s César Awards, the country’s equivalent to the Oscars, after convicted rapist and disgraced director Roman Polanski took home one of the top prizes at the ceremony.
Nominated for 12 awards, Polanski’s “An Officer And A Spy” had already garnered plenty of controversy before the award show even kicked off in Paris on Friday night, as the 21-person board that oversees the event abruptly resigned en masse earlier this month in protest of his nominations and the organization’s “opaque decision-making process.”
Though Polanski — who pleaded guilty in 1977 for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl — refused to attend the award show for fear of a “public lynching,” he won best director for the film, which prompted multiple attendees to storm out of the ceremony.
Actor Adèle Haenel, who was nominated for her performance in Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” stood up and exited the Salle Pleyel after Polanski won the award, appearing to yell “shame” as she left the hall.
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