Daniela Elstner, managing director of French cinema and TV export agency Unifrance, has filed a police complaint against singer and actor Patrick Bruel for attempted rape and sexual assault.
The complaint, which was filed on March 12, was revealed by French investigative news website Mediapart on Wednesday as part of a wider report on allegations by eight women who accuse Bruel of sexual violence between 1992 and 2019.
Mediapart reported that a second complaint for rape had been a lodged against Bruel, with the incident alleged to have taken place at the Dinard British Film Festival in 2012, when he was president of the jury. It said the case was under preliminary investigation at the public prosecutor’s office in Saint Malo, but that the accuser had declined to comment publicly.
Contacted by Mediapart, Bruel’s lawyer Christophe Ingrain denied the allegations leveled against his client. He was quoted as saying Bruel had “never overridden a refusal” and “never forced anyone into a sexual act or relationship.”
The in-depth investigation by Mediapart correspondent Marine Turchi, who has investigated several high-profile MeToo cases in France, covers accusations from another six women whose paths crossed Bruel in the cinema, music and tennis worlds as well as luxury spas.
Elstner’s decision to file a complaint against Bruel and speak publicly about her allegations to Mediapart comes nearly a decade after she first revealed she had been sexually assaulted early on in her career in a 2017 interview with Deadline’s International Editor Andreas Wiseman, when he was deputy editor at Screen International.
At the time, she declined to reveal the identity of her alleged aggressor, saying only that he was a high-profile figure in the film industry.
A household name in France, Bruel’s more than 60 film and TV credits include pictures such as Sabrina, The Best Is Yet To Come, A Bag of Marbles and What’s In A Name?
Mediapart noted it was not the first time Bruel has been publicly accused of sexual assault. In 2019, five women working as masseuses in different luxury spas across France accused the actor of sexual violence.
Four of them lodged official complaints but the cases were dismissed due to lack of evidence. One of these accusers told Mediapart, she had been left feeling “deeply humiliated and hurt” after she was attacked by the star’s fans and her allegations were dismissed.
Elstner’s newly filed complaint involves events she alleges took place during Unifrance’s French Film Festival in Acapulco, Mexico in 1997.
Then 26, and at the beginning of her career, Elstner was working as an assistant at the state-backed body, while Bruel was in attendance as the star of a thriller called K.
In her interview with Mediapart, Elstner accused Bruel of forcing himself on her while she was dealing with the logistics for the luggage of the attending VIPs.
“The artists were staying at the Las Brisas hotel, in bungalows scattered across a hillside. On the day of departure, I was collecting the artists’ hundred or so suitcases from the empty parking lot, as everyone was having lunch,” she recounted.
“Patrick Bruel, with whom I hadn’t had any particular interaction during the festival, came up behind me without me seeing him and pushed me into his car—which was reserved for VIPs. In a matter of seconds, while I was working, I found myself in the car, doors closed, with a man who was jumping on me, forcibly kissing me, undressing me, touching my breasts and the rest of my body,” she continued.
“I was in a state of shock; I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I remember the Mexican driver’s smiles in the rearview mirror as I struggled, and Patrick Bruel’s words, which were more or less: ‘Who are you? Nobody will believe you. You’re nothing. Do you know who I am?’ That sentence affected me as much as the physical assault, because it was very clearly intended to tell me that I didn’t exist. The car drove back up to the bungalow; it felt like the journey lasted forever.”
Elstner said Bruel then bundled her into his room, from where she managed to escape after struggling and screaming.
She left Unifrance shortly after to build a career in international film sales before returning to the organisation as its managing director in 2019.
Elstner told Wiseman in her 2017 interview that she had confided in a handful of senior colleagues about what happened in Mexico at the time, but that her experiences had been laughed off.
“That haunts you even more than the incident itself,” she said. “Few people cared.”
Speaking to Mediapart, Elstner’s lawyer Jade Dousselin said her client’s decision to lodge an official complaint against Bruel and go public with his identity was part of a long personal journey.
“It was only recently, after a difficult journey, that she made the painful and significant decision to speak out for herself and for all the others; and to do so, to take legal action,” said Dousselin.
“She is aware that the statute of limitations has expired for the acts she is denouncing. It took her years to overcome this painful hurdle. Proof, if any were needed, of the difficulty of such a process. Her approach today is less about seeking condemnation than about seeking liberation.”
Deadline has reached out to Ingrain and Bruel’s reps separately for further comment.
Elstner’s initial refusal in 2017 to name her alleged attacker came amid a complex response to the MeToo movement in France, with few victims prepared to come forward, and those who did receiving little support from the film industry.
Adèle Haenel , who was one of the first high-profile French actresses to go public with MeToo allegations in 2019, when she accused director Christophe Ruggia of sexually assaulting her as a minor, found herself hung out to dry.
She walked out of the 2020 César ceremony when Roman Polanski was announced as the winner of Best Director for his film J’Accuse, a vote that was seen as a betrayal of her stand. She left the cinema industry in 2023 accusing it of being “reactionary, racist, and patriarchal” in an open letter.
The tide has over the past 18 months.
Ruggia was found guilty in 2024 and given a two-year custodial sentence under house arrest with an electronic bracelet in 2025.
Actress and director Judith Godrèche also helped raise awareness around the issue when she went public in 2024 with sexual violence accusations against Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, which they both denied.
Most recently, Gérard Depardieu was found guilty of sexual assault and given him a 18-month suspended sentence in relation his behavior on the set of Jean Becker’s The Green Shutters in 2021.
The trial marked Depardieu’s first time in court against a backdrop of at least 20 public allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior against him, dating back decades, although many allegations have only come to light in recent years.