“Two disgusting hands on my 15-year-old breasts.” Judith Godrech’s powerful performance blows the 2024 Cesars.

His speech at the ceremony was announced days before. But no one could have imagined the power of the words that Judith Godrech spoke at Cesar’s evening. After a long cheer on stage after her arrival, the actress delivered a powerful text that blew the whole room away. “During my rebellion, I thought of these terms that we use on set: “silence”, “engine request”. Silence has been my driving force for thirty years. However, I imagine the incredible melody we could create together, made of truths.”

In her black ensemble, the voice of the 51-year-old actress sometimes broke with emotion. Judith Godrech knows what she’s talking about. Last December, she shocked the 7th art world by publicly accusing director Benoit Jacquet, with whom she was in a relationship when she was 15 and he was 40, of physical and sexual abuse. She then filed a complaint against him in February. “It’s been a while since the words got loose,” he announced before asking. “The image of our idealized fathers is being eroded. But don’t we have to face the truth? (…) I’ve been talking for some time now, but I don’t hear you, or barely. Where are you? What are you saying? A whisper, half a word, would be enough. I know it’s scary, I’m scared too. I left school at 15, I don’t have a bachelor’s degree, nothing. It would be difficult to be blacklisted after all.”

“Silent Gazes”

“It’s hard to be in front of all of you tonight,” he began as he took the stage. Many of you have seen me grow up, it’s impressive, it leaves a mark. Basically, I don’t know anything other than cinema.” This is one of the aspects that the actress regularly returns to in her media interventions. People around him knew. But “it wouldn’t hurt,” he promised. Just scratches on the corpse of our curious family. That’s nothing compared to a fist nose, a kid storming in like a city under siege. Under the silent gaze of the team from an all-powerful adult, to a director who whispers to lure me onto his bed to find out who I really am. That’s nothing compared to 45 with two disgusting hands on my 15 year old breasts. The actress was referring to the shooting of the film here The 15-year-old girlJacques Doillon’s film, against which she also filed a complaint in early February, accusing him of sexually abusing her when she was 15.

“We are the dawn of a new day”

He, who was silent for almost thirty years, also shared a message of hope with the audience. “We are at the dawn of a new day,” he smiled. As proof, the latter ended his speech by recalling the 2,000 testimonies received in just four days from young women who had the same experience as he had with older men. However, he assured that “to believe in yourself, you still have to believe in yourself” in his speech, which he began by saying: And for everything to happen, you still need to have the courage to “say out loud what everyone else is thinking”. Courage that is greeted with a standing ovation from the Olympia public.