The documentary film “In the Shadow of Clairvaux Abbey” will be screened on Sunday June 30 at 4:30 p.m. for the first time in Haute-Marne at the A l’Affiche cinema.
Finalized in March 2024, the documentary “In the Shadow of Clairvaux Abbey” will be screened on Sunday June 30 at 4:30 p.m. at the A l’Affiche cinema. This is a preview for Haute-Marne.
“After Covid, in 2022, my steps took me to this place. It was by seeing the watchtowers still in operation a few meters away during a visit that the conviction to make a film resurfaced,” explains Haut-Marne director Eric Lebel.
“We were breathing “freely” again with the end of the pandemic, but anyone who reflects on their own freedom is challenged by this site,” according to the filmmaker, and that is the whole question raised by the film.
Wondering about seclusion
Clairvaux, the Central House, is a prison for long sentences. The focus of the documentary is not what the inmates interviewed did to get to prison. “What was important to me was to understand, to show how it is possible to live in a closed environment, where the rules for the monks and the regulations for the penitentiary, with unsuspected severity, are rigorous. The screenwriter had this curiosity for men with “exceptional” backgrounds. »
To film in the Central House, the director had to gain the trust of the inmates and the monks. “In both cases, these are people withdrawn from the world and this must be taken into account. For prison professionals, I remained an extraterrestrial, and I accepted it,” he remembers.
Time stretches
During filming, the film evolved. “Despite scouting, I constantly discovered relatively unknown worlds and situations. You don’t arrive in a prison or a monastery by walking through the door and simply setting up your cameras. These are places of constraints. There, the time is long. We must respect this rhythm,” emphasizes Éric Lebel.
The prison and monastic worlds have something fascinating and are of an unsuspected human richness for the director, and he intends to discuss them at the end of the screening with the numerous spectators expected at the end of June. For everyone else, you will have to wait for the national release in October 2024.
