CANNES, France (AP) – A dark side of the movie world has played out onscreen at Cannes in “An Open Secret,” a documentary about child sexual abuse that calls itself “the movie Hollywood doesn’t want you to see.”
The film features interviews with former child actors and models who were abused by agents, managers and other industry figures. The filmmakers hope it will encourage more victims to speak out.
“Once kids see that we stick up for the victims, then that’s when I think more people will come forward,” Evan Henzi, a former child performer who was abused by his manager, said after a Tuesday screening.
Henzi said his abuse “started when I was 11 and I didn’t come forward until I was 18, and it ruined my entire childhood.”
The film is directed by acclaimed documentarian Amy Berg, who made miscarriage-of-justice story “West of Memphis” and the Academy Award-nominated “Deliver us from Evil,” about child abuse in the Roman Catholic church.