Venice Film Festival director defends Roman Polanski, Woody Allen invites: ‘I don’t see where the issue is’

Go jump in the canal.

Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera is refusing to row back on his decision to invite Hollywood real-life villains Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and Luc Besson to the late summer event, which will take place in spite of the potentially party-pooping SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.

“Luc Besson has been recently fully cleared of any accusations. Woody Allen went under legal scrutiny twice at the end of the ’90s and was absolved,” Barbera said in a new interview with Variety. “With them, I don’t see what the issue is.”

Polanski, Allen and Besson have been publicly accused of varying degrees of sexual misconduct, over a period of years.

In the case of Besson, Barbera was referring to the rape accusation of which the director was cleared last month in a French court. Since 2018, Besson has had multiple charges of sexual misconduct leveled against him, though he denies any wrongdoing.

Allen, on the other hand, was New York’s indie darling for decades, before being accused of sexually abusing his step-daughter, Dylan, starting when she was 7 years old. Allen has repeatedly denied the allegation and has never been charged.

Polanski is the only one of the three to have been convicted of a crime. In 1977, the 43-year-old director was charged in California with six offenses against a 13-year-old girl, including unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and rape by use of drugs.

Polanski accepted a plea bargain, the terms of which convicted him only of “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” — the least serious among the offenses. Polanski fled to Europe before a full 90-day jail sentence could be served. He hasn’t set foot in the United States since 1978.

In this latter case, Barbera called the situation “paradoxical.”

“Polanski has admitted his responsibility,” the festival director said. “I think that to keep beating on Polanski means seeking a scapegoat for other situations that would deserve more attention.”

Barbera also confirmed that Allen would be at his film’s premiere “for sure.”