<p class="title">Roman Polanski won the best director for An Officer and a Spy at a fractious ceremony for the French Oscars, the Cesars, that ended in walkouts and recrimination in Paris early Saturday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The entire French academy had been forced to resign earlier this month amid fury that the veteran — wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977 — had topped the list of nominations.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Protesters chanting “Lock up Polanski!” tried to storm the theatre where the ceremony was being held before being pushed back by police firing tear gas.</p>.<p class="bodytext">And France’s Culture Minister Franck Riester had warned that giving the maker of <span class="italic">Rosemary’s Baby</span> a Cesar would be “symbolically bad given the stance we must take against sexual and sexist violence”. But Polanski won two awards, best-adapted screenplay and best director — with the latter prompting Adele Haenel, who was nominated for best actress for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, to storm out, crying “Shame!” Haenel has become a hero of the #MeToo movement in France after accusing the director of her first film, Christophe Ruggia, of sexually harassing her when she was only 12.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Polanski’s film also picked up best costume design. “Distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims,” Haenel had said in the run-up to the Cesars. “It means raping women isn’t that bad.”</p>.<p class="bodytext">Polanski, 86, and the entire team of his historical drama had boycotted the ceremony, fearing a “public lynching”.</p>.<p class="bodytext">An Officer and a Spy is based on the Dreyfus affair which divided France in the late 19th century when a Jewish army officer was wrongly prosecuted for spying. “What place can there be in such deplorable conditions for a film about the defence of truth, the fight for justice, (against) blind hate and anti-Semitism?” the director told AFP.</p>
<p class="title">Roman Polanski won the best director for An Officer and a Spy at a fractious ceremony for the French Oscars, the Cesars, that ended in walkouts and recrimination in Paris early Saturday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The entire French academy had been forced to resign earlier this month amid fury that the veteran — wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977 — had topped the list of nominations.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Protesters chanting “Lock up Polanski!” tried to storm the theatre where the ceremony was being held before being pushed back by police firing tear gas.</p>.<p class="bodytext">And France’s Culture Minister Franck Riester had warned that giving the maker of <span class="italic">Rosemary’s Baby</span> a Cesar would be “symbolically bad given the stance we must take against sexual and sexist violence”. But Polanski won two awards, best-adapted screenplay and best director — with the latter prompting Adele Haenel, who was nominated for best actress for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, to storm out, crying “Shame!” Haenel has become a hero of the #MeToo movement in France after accusing the director of her first film, Christophe Ruggia, of sexually harassing her when she was only 12.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Polanski’s film also picked up best costume design. “Distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims,” Haenel had said in the run-up to the Cesars. “It means raping women isn’t that bad.”</p>.<p class="bodytext">Polanski, 86, and the entire team of his historical drama had boycotted the ceremony, fearing a “public lynching”.</p>.<p class="bodytext">An Officer and a Spy is based on the Dreyfus affair which divided France in the late 19th century when a Jewish army officer was wrongly prosecuted for spying. “What place can there be in such deplorable conditions for a film about the defence of truth, the fight for justice, (against) blind hate and anti-Semitism?” the director told AFP.</p>