Backlash forces Roman Polanski to withdraw from César Awards

A petition calling for his dismissal was launched online and received over 60,000 signatures, while women’s rights group Osez le Feminisme called for a boycott of the event.

Announcing his withdrawal, his lawyer Herve Temime told the Associated Press that he would be stepping down ‘so as not to disrupt the Césars ceremony, which should be devoted to cinema and not to the designation of its president’.

Speaking to RTL radio yesterday, Polanski’s friend Theirry Fremaux, director of the Cannes Film Festival, said the movie maker was ‘devastated’ by the renewed criticism.

Polanski… has quit as president of this year’s César Awards – Credit: Reuters

Polanski has been living under the threat of extradition to the US since the late 70s, after being found guilty of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

On being told that a plea deal allowing him to serve just 42 days in prison for the incident in 1977 was about to be dropped, he fled to France and has lived in various European countries ever since.

Despite this, he has had a continuing involvement in cinema, his last movie ‘Venus In Fur’ being released in 2013.

It received five nominations at the César Awards, and won Polanski the Best Director gong.

He also won Best Director at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival for his movie ‘Carnage’, starring John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz.

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