Filmmakers demand Polanski's release

Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese have "demanded the immediate release" of fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant related to a 1977 child sex charge.

They were among 138 people in the film industry who signed a petition against the arrest.

Polanski was on the way to the Zurich Film Festival when Swiss police detained him in response to the American warrant.

The filmmaker pleaded guilty in 1977 to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor but fled before he could be sentenced. He settled in France, where he holds citizenship. Investigators in the United States say Polanski, then 43, drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.

The filmmakers objected to his being arrested en route to the film festival, which held a tribute to him this year.

"It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him," said the petition, backed by France's Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers).
"The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance ... opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects," said the signatories, who also included actresses Monica Bellucci and Tilda Swinton and directors David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, John Landis, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Wim Wenders.

for sure this is just anothe ivention to getting fame for people cause in 2003 she say well he should come back yoo know becaouse i know he is sorry for what he did, how she have courage to say that it is obious that someone who really have been abused wouldnt say that, thats why i think they shold realesed one of the greatest directors of all time who films have impact the whole world.