Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Quebec culture minister wants Jutra name removed from film awards gala amid accusations

Héléne David said she made the request Wednesday morning, after a Montreal resident
claimed he suffered multiple sexual assaults at the hands of  Jutra over 10 years when
he was a child, beginning when he was only six.
Quebec’s culture minister is demanding the name of film director Claude Jutra be removed from the annual gala to celebrate Quebec cinema in the wake of allegations Jutra was a pedophile.

Héléne David said she made the request Wednesday morning, after a Montreal resident claimed he suffered multiple sexual assaults at the hands of  Jutra over 10 years when he was a child, beginning when he was only six.

“It’s extremely upsetting. These are very serious allegations,” David said in Quebec City. “All my thoughts go with the victim, who has lived with this his whole life, with the scars of this pedophilic act.”

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said Wednesday that the city will remove Jutra’s name from a park and street in the city.

In an interview in La Presse published Wednesday, the man, who wished to remain anonymous, reveals explicit details about the assaults that took place when Jutra would visit his home. Jutra and the man’s parents were friends, but they suspected nothing.

At the end of adolescence, he says he violently rejected one of the assaults. A few months later, he left the family home to continue his studies far from Montreal and Jutra.

During the interview, the man says he told his family about the incidents when Jutra died in 1986. The release of a Jutra biography this week, written by Yves Lever, that revealed relations with young men convinced the man to come forward.  (more...)


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