“I don’t appreciate being used as media cannon fodder”: Emmanuelle Bercot responds to Isild Le Besco

In Dire vérité, published by Denoël on May 1, Isild Le Besco looks back on his experience in the world of cinema. She describes in particular her relationship with Benoît Jacquot, when she was 16 and he was 52, a few months after filming her film Sade (2000), her first major role. She recounts the “destructive influence” of the director and accuses him of rape “To say that Benoît raped me is obvious (...) I was a teenager and I gave him my complete trust,” testifies she echoes the accusations of Judith Godrèche

Isild Le Besco also recounts her difficult beginnings when she was 14 years old. And in particular the filming of La Puce (1998), directed by Emmanuelle Bercot for her graduation film at the La Fémis state school. Isild Le Besco recounts a long sex scene during which she had to look at an actor's erect penis. She also mentions the multiple reshoots of a slapping scene, or the fact that the director asked her to lose weight. “The filming with Emmanuelle Bercot was an adventure that was both brilliant and trying, an intimate experience exposed for all to see. Eventually, the violence and humiliation common on the sets seemed banal to me,” she testifies.

At the microphone of France Inter on Monday, Emmanuelle Bercot denies it outright. “No, no, no, I never asked Isild to lose weight, ever!” She explains that she understands this introspective approach of the actress but “does not appreciate being used as media cannon fodder for the promotion of her book and being cited among several men designated as attackers or rapists”.

Emmanuelle Bercot has “no desire to get into a controversy”. However, she intends not to be able to “let anyone say anything”. “There is no long sex scene in this film. The shot lasts five seconds,” she explains. She adds that when “a 14-year-old girl is turned around, the DDASS intervenes”, that all this is “very regulated, very protected”.

Emmanuelle Bercot says she is “stunned” by Isild Le Besco’s allegations and deplores the fact that “no one is going to see the film, no one is going to look at what it’s about”. “We are making very ambiguous insinuations,” she regrets. “I don’t accept it at all.” She criticizes the “amalgamations” that are made and asks that La Puce not be considered today “as an obscure film where [she would] have made Isild do things that are not possible”. “My word also has value,” she concludes at France Inter.

On May 8, Emmanuelle Bercot will appear in the film L'Esprit Coubertin by Jérémie Sein, in the role of Sonia, the trainer of Paul, world shooting champion, on whom the last hopes are based after the disastrous performances other French competitors at the 2024 Olympic Games.