French actress Judith Chemla took to her Instagram account late Sunday night to post photos of injuries she said she sustained a year ago from domestic abuse suffered at the hands of her daughter’s father whom she did not name.
This past May, according to FranceInfo, film director Yohan Manca, with whom Chemla was previously in a relationship, was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence for domestic violence against the actress.
But in the lengthy Insta post, Chemla, a two-time César nominee, wrote, “I have so much evidence that he continues to try and harm me… What must it take for him to leave me alone?” She later added, “I can’t stand it anymore. I demand peace. Is it clearer like this?”
The post began, “A year ago my face was injured, blue, purple under my eye, I saw myself deformed. A year ago I looked at my face in the mirror and I knew that I could no longer hide my face.”
In the post, Chemla also refers to filing more than one complaint against the perpetrator and asks, “Should I go back to the police a third time? Filing a third complaint in a year? To be in the film industry and have the sword of Damocles of eight months of a suspended sentence, isn’t that enough?… Should I keep this to myself? He would continue to feel above the law… He will continue to believe he is able to pressure me and harass me morally.”
Chemla, whose credits include 2012’s Camille Rewinds, 2016’s Une Vie and recently released comedy Not My Type, also starred in My Brothers And I which ran in the 2021 Un Certain Regard section of Cannes. However, neither she nor the director, Manca, appeared for the official screening.
Citing sources at the time, Variety reported Chemla had filed a complaint against Manca with the police in Paris’ 10th arrondissement after he allegedly threw a cell phone at her in the street near Theatre du Rond-Point on July 3, 2021.
Deadline has reached out to Chemla’s rep for comment.