"Des hommes", an overwhelming documentary on the life of a prisoner in France

Text by: RFI Follow

Among the new films in theaters in France this Wednesday, February 19, a first documentary feature called "Men". The two directors, Alice Odiot and Jean-Robert Viallet, were able to shoot, before it closed, at the Baumettes prison in Marseille.

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" A society judges itself by the state of its prisons, " said Albert Camus. The great writer and philosopher would then severely judge our French democracy.

The documentary Des hommes brings new, overwhelming testimony to the state of play of the deprivation of liberty in France . Journalists Alice Odiot and Jean-Robert Viallet were able to tour for 25 days at Les Baumettes. From this time filming behind bars, they report strong sequences and show the banality of the detention, and the humanity of the prisoners.

" Inhuman " conditions of detention

The conditions of detention in this Marseille prison were deemed " inhuman " by the controller general of places of deprivation of liberty. The majority of young detainees spend all their days smoking or watching television in their cell, sometimes 3 in 9 square meters, with leper walls.

Inside the prison walls, there is real insecurity and possible violent death. " If you let yourself be killed here, " says one man. " All the prisoners know how to make a knife, everyone has one, " said another.

The Baumettes prison was closed in 2018, but elsewhere, in other penitentiaries , there are equally lost prisoners, prisoners of fate. But still Men , despite everything.

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