Make no mistake about it, La Nuit du 12 is not only the big winner of the César 2023 awards. the Olympia.
With 6 César, including Best Film and Best Director, La Nuit du 12 largely dominated the prize list of the 48th ceremony, which took place in the hall of the Olympia in Paris, this Friday, February 24. But behind the glitter and the thanks, there is a film, a thriller with a radical discourse that takes a lucid look at violence against women.
Adapted from a passage (30 pages out of 500) from Pauline Guéna’s book 18.3 – a year at the PJ, published for the first time in 2021 by Gallimard editions, Dominik Moll’s film claims realism and plunges into the daily life of police officers investigating the particularly violent death – the victim was burned alive – of a young woman who was not carelessness and joie de vivre. This affair soon becomes an obsession for the leader of the group, for whom this assassination will remain a gaping wound.
Harsh and fascinating, Dominik Moll’s film, directed by Bastien Bouillon and Bouli Lanners, dismantles the implacable mechanics of feminicide. A remark which the producers and the director echoed during the César evening through powerful speeches leaving no doubt about the societal subtext of this detective film.
One death every three days
“It’s an award that touches us enormously, as you can imagine. In the film, two characters share this observation: there is something wrong between women and men. That’s an understatement. The morbid The tally of violence against women can be summed up in one sentence: one death every three days, and in bad years every two days. Only women know in their flesh what the violence inflicted on them is. But yet When Dominik and Gilles came to see us with the desire to make this film, it seemed obvious to us that there was a lack. That the eyes of men were important. That we had to give voice to these men And that the filmmakers absolutely had to seize this story. Dominik, a few days ago you gave an interview and you quoted the philosopher Geneviève Fraisse, who said something that really struck me: that #MeToo liberated speech, but now it was about liberating listening. Dominik’s film, the men listen. They listen to other men spouting a stream of profoundly misogynistic remarks without realizing anything; but above all they listen to women who hold up an uncompromising mirror to them. And I think that if the film upsets us, that’s why. But that’s also why it soothes us deeply and why we all needed it very deeply. So I would say long live the women, and long live the men who join their fight. Because this fight we must fight it together.” – Caroline Benjo, producer
Her name was Maud
“This is going to seem a bit anecdotal, but I would like to thank the investigators from the Grenoble PJ, who welcomed me for a week. This immersion course was very important for the accuracy of the film. I wanted to thank them for their trust. And I wanted to have a thought for the real Clara, the real victim of the case that gave rise to the film. Her name was Maud.” – Dominik Moll