“We must not expect anything from the victims”, with Quitter la nuit, Delphine Girard faces justice with its limits

On a blue poster, a tense-looking policewoman. We’ll think about it The one guilty, by Gustav Möller. If it starts as a thriller, Leave the night performs a 360° rotation. The film may be based on a true story, but it quickly loses interest in the impressive aspect of the news to focus on turn instead to exploring the deep and imperfect mechanisms of justice.

The trailer for Leaving the Night

One night, a woman in danger calls the police. Anna answers the call. A man is arrested. The weeks go by, justice seeks evidenceAly, Anna and Dary face the echoes of that night that they can’t leave behind. A gap widens between an institution with sometimes glacial methods and the three characters.

To miss. Leaving the Night is inspired by true events. Can you tell us about its genesis?

Delfina Girard. In 2018, I came across a call to 911, the emergency number in the United States. Era a woman pretending to call his sister to ask for help when she was kidnapped by a man. I was very shocked and touched by this call, by what can or cannot be said to make others understand the discomfort we are experiencing. I made a short film of it that actually contains the first 15 minutes Leave the night. The purpose of this film is to follow the trajectory of the three characters after this nightmarish night and see what proposal the legal system will make to them.

Your film reveals that justice expects a certain behavior from victims. Your character, Ali, doesn’t fit this role.

This is what I observed during the trials I witnessed, herevictims are expected to be in a certain posture. Some women told me they had to exaggerate to be believed. Ali, the character in my film, doesn’t want to alienate herself or lie to be heard. When they met, she liked the man who would become her abuser; it was she who suggested he go to her house, before retracting her statement. But this is not good the speech that justice wants to hear. Ali no docile. He’s not a perfect victim, but in reality it doesn’t exist. We must not expect anything from the victims.

Your film resonates with Anatomy of a Fall. In Justine Triet’s film, Sandra’s lawyer replies “that’s not the problem” when she tells him that she is innocent. These two films demonstrate that justice is just a game, a simulacrum.

It’s very fair. Going to the trials, I had the impression of seeing a terrible theater.

I naively believed that justice was a place where repair was sought, the evolution of mentalities.

But there is neither time nor space. Either justice punishes or it does nothing. I was very naive, but I thought that in the face of justice, victims could say what they need. But it doesn’t exist. We do not care. Justice is so worried THE trial that he misses what people are going through.

Your film follows the life of the abuser, when one would expect it to focus solely on the victim. Most of the time, in films and series, the attackers remain in the shadows. Why did you make this choice?

I don’t think it helps us to say he’s a monster. The men who commit violent acts, rape, are men we know. The sick psychopath represents a small percentage of attackers. I want to think about what it takes for this attacker to lift the veil on his actions, to question himself.

I can feel how special it is to see a film that stars both of them. It’s uncomfortable. And he’s doing quite well. But that’s part of the problem.

A man who raped, you can’t see it. He is kind to his mother, loved in her work. What intrigues me about this character is the how he doesn’t know what he did.

To sum up, the challenge for this character is to understand that he destroyed a woman’s life?

I think in humans, at different levels, we face the truth. There’s a lot of talk about traumatic amnesia for victims, but it also exists for authors. Gets along with an image of himself that he can live with. Justice should help the guilty towards this understanding, towards empathy.

Your short film was called “A Sister”. Wouldn’t the sister be the police officer who receives the call and takes care of the victim even years later?

YES. Leave the night is crossed by the brotherhood. It’s about how women have to make their repairs with each other. But for me, sisterhood is a bandage but not a solution, waiting for men to also take part in these changes. Until then, women will have to shelter each other.

Even if your film takes a cold inventory of justice, is it legitimate to have faith in it and believe in the future?

Institutions as old as justice give us the impression that it could never be otherwise. But allowing yourself to think that it could be different is already a big step.

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