Cannes to Premiere Judith Godrèche’s #MeToo Short Film ‘Moi aussi’ at Un Certain Regard Opening Ceremony

French actress, director, screenwriter and producer Judith Godrèche’s new short film Moi aussi, which highlights the stories of victims of sexual violence, will world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival at the Un Certain Regard opening ceremony in the Salle Debussy of the Palais des Festivals and at the Cinéma de la Plage, with free admission, on May 15.

Godrèche is largely regarded as kickstarting France’s late #MeToo movement after a searing speech at the 2024 César Awards (France’s equivalent to the Oscars), after she accused the directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, the former partner of the late singer and actor Jane Birkin, of rape and sexual assault when she was a teenager.

“For some time now, voices have been unleashed, the idealized image of our fathers has been shattered, power almost seems to be in a state of turmoil, could it be possible for us to look at the truth in the eye?,” she said in her scheduled speech.

“To take on our responsibilities? To be actors, actresses of a world that is questioning itself?,” she continued. “For some time now, I’ve been talking and talking, but I can’t hear you, or only a little. Where are you? What are you saying? A whisper. Half a word.”

Jacquot has denied the accusations and claimed all sexual relations were consenting. Doillon has also denied the accusations, describing them as “lies.”

In 2020, actress and star of Portrait of a Lady on Fire Adèle Haenel, walked out of the César awards ceremony shouting “shame!,” after Roman Polanski was awarded Best Director for his film J’accuse (An Officer and a Spy). As a result, Haenel left acting last year, due to the French film industry’s “general complacency” towards sexual predators.

The festival bills the short as a project “which highlights the stories of victims of sexual violence. These individual experiences add to her own, underscoring their sadly universal nature. The Festival de Cannes thus wishes to give resonance to these personal accounts.”

Per the festival announcement, “Cinema looks at the world, and sometimes, calls it out. Through gestures or silences, words, or glances. Three months ago, the resounding call for action and collective responsibility in the fight against persistent sexual abuse in French cinema was striking in its strength and courage, its clarity and assurance. And it went far beyond the boundaries of the Seventh Art to question the whole of society, which is struggling to open its eyes. Exactly one month after this salutary speech, on March 23, 2024, Judith Godrèche took up the two means of expression she knows best — writing and film — and brought together women and men who had shared their traumatic experiences with her.”

Said Judith Godrèche, “Suddenly, before me was a crowd of victims, a reality that also represented France, so many stories from all social backgrounds and generations,” Judith Godrèche confided. “Then the question was, what I was going to do with them? What do you do when you’re overwhelmed by what you hear, by the sheer volume of testimonies?”

The 77th Cannes Film Festival runs May 14-25 and features new films from Andrea Arnold, Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Schrader, Yorgos Lanthimos and more. See the official lineup here. Academy Award-nominated actor, writer, director Greta Gerwig (Barbie, Lady Bird) heads the main competition jury with Academy Award nominated actress Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) and multiple Cannes-winning writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters, Broker) among the jury members.