Documentary on police violence crowned twice at French film festival
The Monopoly of Violence (Un pays qui se tient sage) by David Dufresne won both the Grand Prize and the International Jury prize at the 12th My French Film Festival which wrapped up this week. Using amateur footage taken during violent anti-government Yellow Vest protests, the documentary invites us to reflect on the issue of policing in modern democracies.
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“The state claims the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force,” wrote German sociologist Max Weber at the end of the 19th century.
The Monopoly of Violence (Un pays qui se tient sage), by French director David Dufresne, explores this concept by asking police officers, sociologists, injured demonstrators, and victims' relatives to react and comment on various sequence of images sourced from amateur mobile phone footage.
Journalist, writer and director Dufresne has in the last few years also become the unofficial spokesman on the issue of police violence in France, a label which grew from his presence on Twitter and his slogan "Allo Place Beauvau" flagging up cases of police violence directly to the Interior Ministry.
He began putting together the elements of his film at the height of the Yellow Vest anti-government protests in 2018. The process of selecting raw footage from social media accounts and the internet was a long and fastidious job.
For Dufresne, it was important to bring these images to the big screen, larger than life, rather than have them remain stuck inside the tiny screens of televisions or even telephones, easily forgotten once the viewer has moved on.
He saw an opportunity to bring about a public debate on the role of police in society and whether there can be such a thing as “legitimate violence” - not just in France, but in any democracy.
"What I wanted to show is that being a police [officer] is not something one does naturally. The role of the police is not something set in stone, it is something than can be discussed," Dufresne told 20 Minutes newspaper in October 2020 when the film was released in French cinemas.
The rise of the Yellow Vest movement and the regular protests was clearly a turning point, says Dufresne, when "suddenly we realised that police violence was systemic", not just "a series of unfortunate blunders".
The advent of mobile phones and the concept of citizen journalism no doubt contributed to this.
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"We need to be able to observe the police and criticise the institution in a responsible way. The police falls into the category of a public service, therefore we must be able to scrutinise it."
When accused of being "anti-cop" in his approach, Dufresne says he is "anti abuse of power" and that the role of a journalist is to hold governments accountable.
The world is watching
In accepting his prizes, Dufresne acknowledged the power in having his film viewed by so many people across the globe, saying that it proved that cinema "still has the capacity to be political".
"I think it’s very powerful that there is this global look at France, which prides itself on being the homeland of human rights and is always giving lessons to others. This time France has something to learn," he told Unifrance, partners of the festival.
"I would’ve preferred this film not to exist, that there would be no police violence in the first place. Although it starts with the Yellow Vests, this film is about democracy, and how far a democracy can defend an order which is unfair or unequal.
"It was amazing that the film was crossing borders, and it means a lot to the witnesses in the film. Now the entire world knows what they went through."
The My French Film Festival online event gathered some 11 million spectators in 200 territories around the globe via over 70 media platforms.
Other prizes:
- The International Jury Special Mentions: Madly in Life (Une vie démente) by Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni and All Hands on Deck (À l'abordage) by Guillaume Brac (France).
- International Press Jury Special Mention: Calamity by Rémi Chayé.
- Best Short Film Prizes : Malabar by Maximilian Badier-Rosenthal and a special mention for Little Bear (Ours), directed by Nicolas Birkenstock.
- Audience Prize for Best Feature Film : Madly in Life (Une vie démente) by Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni.
- Audience Prize for Short Film: Erratum, directed by Giulio Callegari.
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