This time, many actresses and experts say they sense a shift in perception.
“Something very profound and very luminous is in the midst of happening,” said the actress Anouk Grinberg. “People who defend victims are no longer considered enemies and hyenas that hunt after men.”
An association of actresses, A.D.A., was formed in 2021 to lobby for change in the industry, including for having intimacy coordinators — professionals who help actors and film crews navigate sex scenes — on set as standard practice. Members say that they have been overwhelmed by applicants to join the association, as well as by victims offering testimonies.
“The difference now,” said Clémentine Poidatz, an A.D.A member, “is people are listening.”
Signs of shifting attitudes are hard to measure. But Ms. Godrèche, who was a film star in France before moving to the United States a decade ago, has received an emotional reception from powerful audiences, including committee members in both the French Senate and National Assembly.
In one public hearing, Erwan Balanant, a centrist lawmaker, said he was embarrassed that he had loved the films she starred in when they were both teenagers. He no longer saw them the same way, he added.
Ms. Godrèche was also invited to give a speech at the Césars, France’s equivalent of the Oscars, four years after it awarded the best director prize to Roman Polanski, who fled from the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old.
At the ceremony, Ms. Godrèche, addressing France’s cinema stars and power brokers, asked how they could collectively accept “that this art that we love so much, this art that binds us” is used as a cover to abuse girls.
