-- Dir. Clémence Davigo - 106min - 2023 - France --

Just above Albertville in the Savoie region, sits the “correctional” facility of La Belle Étoile run by the abbot Garin. Wards of the Nation, orphans and children of the DDASS (the former French social services), Dédé, Michel and Daniel lived there as children in the 60s and 70s, and were beaten, humiliated, shamed and broken. Almost 60 years later, these three men are just a few of the many who bear the indelible scars of their time in this place of terror, ruled by the iron fist of Abbé Garin. With the help of director Clémence Davigo, they finally reunite to break their silence in the idyllic surroundings of the Savoie mountains. In a house overlooking the distant peak on which the Belle Étoile sits – a nightmarish vision for the former boarders – the last surviving “bastards” begin to speak of their ordeal, as they attempt to break the still-powerful law of silence of the Catholic Church. Together, they try to find the words to describe the violence they endured, seeking acknowledgement from wilfully deaf religious authorities. A heartrending chronicle in
search of memory and justice.