French director François Ozon’s “By the Grace of God,” about the real-life story of a priest accused of sexually abusing boy scouts, hits Paris cinemas, a day after its controversial release was approved by the courts.
Moviegoers who saw the film reacted to the controversial movie that touches on a subject that has stirred wounds of sex abuse victims of the Catholic clergy, and also created awareness about the issue.
Marcel Benbassat, one of those who saw the film said, “I remember the prelate, around a campfire, taking a kid with him. It hurt me a lot.”
“I was a boy scout too. And my Scout leader assaulted me,” he added.
Another who saw the film, Marc Pelissier, said it was “very hard, brutal, but liberating at times.”
“Why is it important? These are atrocities that have been committed for a long time, that are still going on. You have to remember the harm that was done in order to make it stop,” said another moviegoer, Marc Paquette.
Françoise Guibert, a volunteer of “Secours catholique,” a Catholic charity said, “I think it’s important because it will allow the entire population, and especially those who have experienced it, to perhaps make peace with it.”
“I think that if such acts have really been committed, and there’s little about that, they destroy lives.”
(with a video interview of Agence France Presse)
