French film collective Respect launches industry-wide code of conduct for navigating sexual assault from script to screen
Around 30 French film industry professionals have formed the ‘Respect Group’ that has created a code of conduct to prevent sexual assault on film sets and provide a concrete tool kit for dealing with incidents should they occur.
The new initiative, whose name the “Groupe Respect” is an acronym that stands for “reactivity, ethics, safety, professionalism, efficiency, trust and transparency” in French, is being spearheaded by producers Caroline Bonmarchand of Avenue B Productions and Alice Girard of Rectangle Productions alongside head of women’s parity organisation Le Lab Femmes du Cinema’s Fabienne Silvestre.
Members include representatives of a range of film industry jobs from actors, directors and casting directors to crew members, distributors and international sales agents.
They met weekly for eight months to craft the tool-kit designed to complement measures already existing in France. They include CNC-mandated training for members of a film’s production and a parliamentary committee just approved by the government to investigate incidents of sexual assault, spearheaded by actress/filmmaker Judith Godrèche.
A collective effort
Bonmarchand and Girard joined forces following accusations on the set of Je Le Jure when the film’s director Samuel Theis, the French co-star of Anatomy Of A Fall, was accused of rape by a crew member. Bonmarchand says she had just 24 hours to make a snap decision on what to do. “There was no guidebook,” she says, despite consulting recommendations from the CNC and groups like the Collectif 50-50.
Theis ended up directing the film from a remote location, but Bonmarchand says the experience was a wake-up call and contacted Girard who had previously experienced her own urgent production dilemma involving a crew member who had been accused of sexual assault on a previous film.
“The tools that exist today are fundamental, but they don’t tell you what to do when it happens on your set,” said Girard, whose recent credits include Patricia Mazuy’s Visiting Hours and Christine Angot’s A Family.
“One person’s actions shouldn’t compromise the work of an entire team. Films are collective efforts.”
The duo set off to bring together a group of professionals to figure out a way forward “to take on sexual assault at every level in the chain of the making of a film, from the writing of the script to its premiere at a festival to its international release,” Girard explains.
Among the active participants in the group are Charades’ Carole Baraton, Along Came Love director Katell Quillévéré, Le Bureau Films’ Bertrand Faivre and Ad Vitam founder Alexandra Henochsberg. The group has also met with key industry figures and representatives from major organisations including France Televisions’ head of cinema Manuel Alduy, Cesar Academy President and producer Patrick Sobelman, Unifrance’s managing director Daniela Elstner, exhibitors’ organisation the FNCF, lawyers, festival representatives and film critics associations.
Respect protocol
The document is divided into three parts: prevention of sexual assault on set; protocol to follow in the event of an accusation; and how to manage the distribution, marketing and international career of a film that has been “tarnished” by such incidents.
Suggestions for preventing on-set sexual assault include details on contracts, mandatory education starting in film schools and training for industry professionals complete with a ’Respect’ certification for productions.
The section on damage control is a step-by-step guide for producers that gives precise details on how to report such accusations to authorities, listening to victims and launching internal investigations, plus specific actions to take to follow depending on who is being accused from a director to talent to producers or crew members.
The final section zooms in on how to handle a film’s festival selection and any media coverage or travel, its theatrical release and promotion, all the way to selling it on the international market and through its broadcast on television.
Next steps
The group is planning to work hand in hand with the CNC and public authorities over the coming months.
While the Respect handbook is designed for future projects, the world premiere of Je Le Jure at December’s Les Arcs Film Festival ahead of its March release in France via Ad Vitam will be a test-run for some of the measures detailed in the report. The director will not participate in any premieres or press for the film, but its cast and production team will be at liberty to discuss it, a move that both Theis and producers hope will allow the film to be discussed on its merit rather than in the shadow of the accusations.
Without such a modus operandi previously in place, “Major festivals like Cannes, Venice and Berlin didn’t even want to consider the film [Je Le Jure] because they wouldn’t be able to select it out of fear of negative reactions,” said Bonmarchand. “It’s about protecting both the film and the festival with a specific protocol. Festivals have a key role to play in all of this.”
Silvestre, who is also one of the co-founders of Les Arcs, believes such transparency, combined with the measures taken by films to obtain the “Respect” certification, will enable festivals to select films by “following a clear and precise protocol.”
“It is not appropriate to select a film while silencing an accusation. But it is also unfair to exclude a film that has done everything to obtain the Respect certification. Our protocol should help festivals to sort things out moving forward.”
The trio will be at Les Arcs’ industry village for a panel to discuss the possibilities of expanding such measures on a more Europe-wide scale and adapting them to different territories.
“We wanted to create a compass for the profession today and for future generations,” Girard explained. “We’re here to pass on the baton, and now it is up to industry professionals and public authorities to take action.”
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