A Paris court was set to begin a defamation lawsuit against veteran film director Roman Polanski on Tuesday.
A British actress, Charlotte Lewis, brought the case against the 90-year-old Franco-Polish director.
He told Paris Match magazine in 2019 that she lied about being sexually assaulted by him four decades ago.
Polanski fled the United States in 1978 after admitting to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Several other women have since come forward with allegations that Polanski abused them. He denies all the allegations against him.
Polanski, who lives in Paris, will not attend the trial and will be represented by his legal team, his lawyers said.
Lewis, who lives in the UK, was expected to be present.
Lewis told French newspaper Le Parisien that she had filed the case four years ago, and while it had been a “long and traumatic” process, she was ready to go to trial.
In 2010, Ms Lewis accused the director of assaulting her in the “worst possible way” when she was 16 in 1983 in Paris, after travelling there for a casting. She later appeared in his 1986 film Pirates.
In a 2019 interview with Paris Match magazine, the French-born director claimed it was a “disgusting lie”.
Paris Match reported that during the interview he allegedly read from a 1999 article in the British tabloid newspaper News of the World, which quotes Lewis as saying: “I was fascinated by him and I wanted to be his lover”.
Lewis has said that the quotes attributed to her in that interview were not accurate.
She filed a defamation complaint and the film’s director was automatically indicted under French law.
Polanski, known for films including Chinatown, The Pianist and Rosemary’s Baby, has faced controversy for decades since fleeing the United States.
He holds both French and Polish citizenship and has evaded various extradition attempts by American authorities.
