The director’s past caught up with him over the weekend, when he was attending the Zurich Film Festival to be honoured for his career.
Polanski was arrested at the airport in Zurich, Switzerland on Saturday (September 26). He is being held under custody until a decision is made about his extradition, stemming from a US arrest warrant.
However, a petition was signed by Costa-Gavras, Wong Kar-Wai, Monica Bellucci, the Cannes Film Festival and several others, demanding the filmmaker’s immediate release. The signatures oppose Polanski’s arrest that occurred while he was headed to the festival in a neutral country. They claim that his extradition would result in serious consequences and would deprive him of his freedom.
According to several reports, the United States has been trying to arrest the director since 2005 on the grounds that he committed illegal sexual acts with children, in particular, one case in 1977 involving a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles.
At the time, Polanski was arrested following charges pressed by the teenager’s parents, to which he pleaded guilty. After a month and a half in prison, he moved to Europe for fear of returning to jail, and then became a French citizen.
Roman Polanski has made forty films as an actor, screenwriter, and director, including the film The Pianist, which won a Best Director Oscar. Recently, he has been working on The Ghost with Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan.