Brindisi, 19 June 2022 – Stopped Today at Ostuni (Brindisi), the Canadian director Paul Haggis. The Oscar winner for the film ‘Crash – Physical Contact’ is accused of sexual violence and aggravated personal injury. According to what was communicated by the Public Prosecutor of Brindisi in a note, the director would have forced a young foreign woman to undergo sexual intercourse for two days in Ostuni where she would have had to participate in the kermesse ‘So Fest’scheduled from 21 to 26 June.
According to investigators, the 69-year-old director accompanied the woman at the ‘Papola Casale’ airport of Brindisi, leaving her there at the first light of dawn despite her “precarious physical and psychological condition”. Here the alleged victim was assisted by the staff of Aeroporti di Puglia and the border police who, after giving her the first attention, accompanied her to the offices of the flying squad. The agents then took the woman to the Perrino hospital in Brindisi where the “pink protocol” for victims of violence was activated.
Subsequently, the woman formalized the complaint. In the detention order, the probative incident of the injured party was also requested in order to crystallize the statements made. The measure carried out derives – informs the Public Prosecutor – from a tight and articulated investigation activity, conducted by the mobile team, which collected evidence subjected to scrutiny by the judicial authority. As far as we know, the director had known for some time the alleged victim who, after one of the episodes of violence, would have been forced to be medicated.
At the Ostuni festival, Haggis was supposed to interview and converse with directors Edward Norton and Michael Nozik. The author of unforgettable scripts such as ‘A million dollar baby’ and had recently been in Salento because he had curated the short film for Mesagne nominated Capital for Culture 2024.