By the Grace of God: Francois Ozon on his Catholic Church abuse drama, France’s version of Spotlight
- Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, Ozon’s latest film focuses on the sexual abuse scandal behind the ongoing trial of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin
- The French director says he never intended to make a political film, but just wanted to raise questions and contribute to public debate
Filmmaking can be such a time-consuming process – years of development, rewrites, shooting and editing – that it seems impossible to make a movie ripped straight from a news headlines. Well, almost.
When Francois Ozon’s latest film By the Grace of God played at the Berlin Film Festival in February, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, the end credits began with a caption: that the verdict for the trial of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the Archbishop of Lyon – a major figure in Ozon’s film – was to be delivered on March 7.
Sure enough, that verdict was delivered. Accused of covering up child sexual abuse by a priest in his diocese, Barbarin was found guilty and given a six-month suspended sentence. Five co-defendants were acquitted in what has become France’s most prominent clergy sex abuse case to date – dubbed “the trial of silence” in the French media.
Barbarin denied concealing allegations that Fr Bernard Preynat – who will go on trial later this year – abused dozens of boys more than a decade before he arrived in the Lyon diocese in 2002.
Barbarin’s trial arrives at a crucial time. Theodore McCarrick, an 88-year-old former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, has just become the most prominent member of the priesthood to be defrocked after he was found guilty of sexually abusing minors.