A controversial documentary released earlier this year focusing on Roman Polanski’s 1977 trial on charges of unlawful sex with a minor has apparently brought new evidence to the case, encouraging the Academy Award-winning director to ask a Los Angeles court to dismiss the charges against him half a lifetime later.

A new legal team representing Roman Polanski has filed a formal request with Los Angeles County Superior Court for dismissal of the child-sex charge against the director. The lawyers say Marina Zenovich’s documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, has brought new evidence in the case, making it clear that the criminal case should be dismissed.

Polanski pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 then abruptly fled the country. The director has made a life for himself in France, having become a French citizen; he cannot be extradited to the United States. The 75-year-old has been married for nearly two decades to actress Emmanuelle Seigner, with whom he has two children.

His case three decades ago evidently attracted massive media attention, none of it in his favor. He was originally charged with several counts, including rape by use of drugs (he allegedly gave the girl, whom he had hired for a photo shoot, champagne and the sedative Quaaludes). These charges were dismissed under the terms of his plea bargain.

He spent 42 days in a California prison for psychiatric evaluation then fled the United States. He has since lived mostly in France, occasionally traveling to his native Poland.

The documentary made by Marina Zenovich, which premiered on HBO in June and hit theaters a month later, does not plead for Polanski’s innocence or for the correctness in his fleeing the US, but does provide a comprehensive perspective on how the criminal case unfolded at the time.

The documentary is a mélange of interviews with friends and acquaintances of Polanski’s, as well as with journalists who covered the story at the time, the victim herself and with both the prosecuting and defense attorneys.
Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, who passed away in the early 1990s, was not interviewed, but he is presented as a man more focused on the media attention bestowed on the case than with the well-being of the victim or the fair trial of the accused.

Polanski’s name already was associated with notoriety, as he was the widower of actress Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1969 by Charles Manson’s followers. She was pregnant with their child at the time.

Furthermore, the offensive act which had him charged with unlawful sex with a minor took place at the Mulholland area home of actor Jack Nicholson, who was not there at the time.

The victim herself, then named Samantha Gailey, now named Samantha Geimer, aged 45 and mother to three children, has said what the director did to her was “wrong” but that she considers he now knows he made a mistake. She said she does not want him to serve a prison sentence. Geimer settled a civil case with Polanski in 1997 and tells Zenovich in the documentary, “I was young … the judge didn’t care about me and he didn’t care about Polanski.”

Lead prosecuting attorney Roger Gunson also states in the film that he understands Polanski’s decision to flee, given that the chances for a fair trial were slim.

The director’s new legal team said Tuesday the new evidence they have reveals “judicial and prosecutorial misconduct ... so distorted the legal process that the interests of justice can only be served with complete dismissal of the case,” as quoted by Reuters.