Who could have imagined one day seeing Michel Houellebecq in a pornographic film? This crazy idea may never come true. In front of a trailer deemed “defamatory” the French writer hopes to ban the Dutch adult film titled Kirac 27. The lawyers of Michel Houellebecq and his wife announced on Tuesday that they had been responsible for taking “all amicable and contentious steps, both civil and criminal”, to obtain this ban.
The trailer for this film, which is to be released on March 11, directed by a Dutch collective, Kirac, was released at the end of January. In particular, we see the writer, shirtless, kissing a young woman in bed. In voice-over, the director, Stefan Ruitenbeek, also recounts that Michel Houellebecq had written to him that his honeymoon in Morocco had been canceled, while his wife had, according to him, “spent a month arranging prostitutes at the advance “.
Steps already taken to ban the film
The couple “discovered with dismay and disgust” that the trailer for Kirac 27 contained “statements implicating them, serious and misleading, violently undermining their dignity”, write Mes Angélique Bérès and Maïa Kantor, who defend the spouses, in a press release.
He therefore instructed his advisers to “immediately put an end to these attacks by all means” by having “withdraw this trailer from platforms and social networks throughout the world”, and by prohibiting the director and the collective “any exploitation, commercial or non-commercial, in any form whatsoever, of the film (…) and other images that they may have of the Houellebecq spouses”.
According to Me Bérès, contacted by AFP, “pre-litigation procedures have already been initiated with the director and the platforms” to obtain the banning of the film, in particular if it contains the voice-over comments of the trailer. . In a letter sent to the director, of which AFP was aware, Michel Houellebecq evokes “the explosion of violence” of the trailer, “which irremediably damages [sa] private life, [son] honor but above all, what is even more serious, to [sa] woman, devastated by the lies” spread about her.