Filmmaker Roman Polanski, who has spent most of his career as a fugitive owing to a statutory rape case, will make a feature film about a man fighting for his reputation.
J’accuse will be his first movie since a tide of sexual misconduct allegations rocked Hollywood, THR reports, with Oscar-winning The Artist actor Jean Dujardin in place to star.
The thriller will tell the real-life story of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish soldier who was accused of spying for the Germans, his trial becoming the talk of Paris in the 1890s.
Dujardin will play the counter-espionage office who managed to prove – after Dreyfus was convicted – that the soldier was in fact innocent.
Polanski’s interest in this story is clearly a personal one, the Oscar-winning director’s career having been overshadowed by his rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Polanski pled guilty to statuary rape, but has ceaselessly fought for his right to keep making films, recently calling his expulsion from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences “illegal” and threatening legal action.
With Polanski being persona non grata for many, The Wolf of Wall Street actor Dujardin’s involvement in the project is likely to raise eyebrows.
The film has an English working title of The Dreyfus Affair and is being produced by French company Legende Films.
