For those who speak French, this is very good: mediapart.fr/journal/france…
“I’m very angry. But it’s not about me, about how I did or didn’t survive. I want to talk about a kind of abuse which is sadly commonplace and to denounce the system of silence and complicity which makes it possible”
She doesn’t want to take the case to court which, in general, “never sentences abusers”, only “one in a hundred rapes”. “Because the law ignores us we have to ignore it”
Christophe Ruggia, who says he ‘discovered’ Haenel, cast her in Les Diables at 11. “For nearly a year the kid actors were uprooted from their families which resulted in very strong bonds” Those close to Hanael are convinced that this was a form of “conditioning” and “isolation”
Many of those who were present on set describe a director who was at once "all-powerful" and "infantile", "immature", "stifling", "monopolising", "demanding", "invasive" with children, isolating himself in a sort of "bubble" with them.
“He was different with me,” Hanael says. “He was playing the love card, he told me that the camera loved me, that I was a genius. I think I even believed him at some points”
The film’s location manager says: “He behaved like her boyfriend. We felt we couldn’t really approach or talk to her because he wanted her to be in character even between takes... Everyone on set felt uncomfortable”
The location manager continues:
“You don’t want to accept that the person you’re working for is abusive... And no one wanted to get in the way of his relationship with the actors because that was part of the creative process”
“You don’t want to accept that the person you’re working for is abusive... And no one wanted to get in the way of his relationship with the actors because that was part of the creative process”
[Translating bits of this because 100+ Frenchwomen in across various fields denounced MeToo last year and because this is an important bit of reporting from @Mediapart who has brought together statements from many on set who talk about why they did nothing at the time]
@Mediapart Christel Baras [important casting director who introduced Hanael to Sciamma]: "We were in the hall of his apartment. Adèle was sitting on the couch in another room. He wanted me to go, to leave them together. I felt uncomfortable, disturbed by the way he was looking at her...
@Mediapart ..."I remember saying to myself: "That's one step too far. Of course I couldn't imagine that anything sexual was happening at the time but I could see his power over her" She remembers looking him straight in the eye and warned him "She's a girl, a little girl. She's only 12!"...
@Mediapart ...After that Ruggia said that he "didn't want her to come onto the set anymore". A decision that she interprets with hindsight as a sort of "banishing", because she was deemed "dangerous".
@Mediapart It was after the film wrapped that the "touching" started. Ruggia invited Hanael over to his house under the pretext that he wanted to take charge of the "cinematographic education" of the actress, read the film scripts she'd been sent and give her general career advice.
@Mediapart On the abuse: "I was always frozen. He blamed me for not consenting, he'd have panic attacks each time because I was making him 'feel guilty'"..."The idea being that it was a love affair and that it was reciprocal."
@Mediapart She still remembers the "strategies" she developed in order to escape his "sexual touching"... "Whenever I entered I room I knew where to put myself so that he wouldn't come and sit next to me".
@Mediapart She remembers the filmmaker getting into a "rage" because she'd "eaten one of the free hotel chocolates" while he was in the middle of "declaring his love for her, in his room". "He threw me out the room, then opened the door. I was stuck in the middle of his drama."
@Mediapart "When she was 16 he took me up on my nervous habit of licking my lips. He told me stop, meaning like: “That's far too sexy, you don't understand what you're doing”"
@Mediapart In 2011, Christophe Ruggia told his ex-girlfriend,the film director Mona Achache, about an incident in which he'd refrained from touching Hanael. Achache was: "alarmed by the way he told the story. He felt strong and loyal for having removed his hand...
@Mediapart He was trying to make a joke about how he'd been crazy in love and she'd driven him nuts." When Achache interrogated him about it he was avoidant. "He didn't even consider that him removing his hand changed nothing in terms of her trauma"
@Mediapart Achache: "He never questioned the very principle of his meetings with Adèle [...] He only thought about himself, his pain, his feelings, without any regard for the consequences it'd have for Adèle" She says she kept silent because it "didn't seem right for me to speak for Adèle".
@Mediapart At the beginning of 2005, she wrote him a letter explaining she no longer wanted "to go over to his place" and that she was "done with cinema". It was a letter written with the intention of "giving up many things" including "a part of [her]self," Haenel said.
@Mediapart "I had guts [writing this letter]. Cinema was what made me feel alive. But, for me, cinema was him. He was the reason I was there, without him I was nothing. Without him I'd fall back into absolute nothingness"
Haenel left her agent, refusing all casting calls and scripts, cutting ties with the industry. "I chose to survive by going off alone." This decision led to "great distress", depression, suicidal thoughts, and a "visceral fear" of bumping into him, which happened three times.
"I was still terrified when he was around and this manifested physically: my heart beat fast, my hands sweated, my head was all over the place." She talks about being "a bag of nerves" for ten years, where she "could barely hold herself upright".
Her teenage diaries carry the traces of this anxiety. In 2006, when she was 17, she relates the "horrible mess in [her] head" and says that she needs to write "in order to remember and clarify things" because she's having "a bit of trouble remembering exactly what happened"
In 2001 she writes "I'm becoming centre of attention" followed by, in 2002, these annotations: "Festival: + Christophe. Strange. I feel alone, weird." Then "2003: I have a secret, I never talk about my life. I'm in a world of adults. [...] 2005: I'm not seeing Christophe again"
In 2006: "Sometimes I think I'll manage to say everything [...] I can't stop myself from thinking about death"
"I felt so dirty at the time, I was so ashamed. I couldn't talk to anyone, I thought it was my fault," Haenel says. She also was scared of "disappointing" or "hurting" her parents. "Silence has never been non-violent. Silence is incredibly violent..."
Haenel talks about plunging herself into her studies "so that no one could think for me. I could have learned Thai boxing, I did philosophy." During this time she says she received "no support from anyone" and felt "alone, guilty". That is, until she met Céline Sciamma and...
made her comeback with 'Water Lilies' which a number of her friends describe as a sort of "renaissance". It's Christel Baras who, feeling terrible about having cast Adèle in the Ruggia film, contacts her about the Sciamma film.
On accepting the role Haenel told Sciamma about the "problems" she'd encountered on her last film, confiding in someone for the first time. "She told me she wanted to make the film but that she wanted to be protected, because something had happened on her last film,
that the director had behaved badly," Sciamma says. "She didn't go into details and had trouble expressing herself, but she talked to me about the consequences it'd had for her: her isolation, the fact that she had given up on cinema. It was obvious I'd just been told a secret"
This 'secret' came out towards the end of shooting. Christel Baras and Véronique Ruggia (acting coach) had both been on the previous set and were heard "discussing, concerned, how far it had gone, whether Ruggia had had sex with this child".
Sciamma and Haenel were beginning a relationship at the time. Sciamma remembres realising how serious it all was when the two of them watched 'Les Diables' together – the first time Haenel had been able to watch the film since its release.
"It was very impressive. In the film she goes mad, faints, screams. But there's an underlying pain. I'd never seen her like that." Sciamma encouraged her "to speak out". "We discussed the idea of talking to him, as well as to the people who'd worked around him"
