If you think Spotlight (MVFF 2015) is all that the cinema world has to say about the trauma of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, François Ozon has some powerful news for you. Acclaimed for his stylish, sexually playful oeuvre (8 Women, Swimming Pool), Ozon radically shifts registers here with a gripping ripped-from-the-headlines exposé of a nationwide scandal still unfolding in France today. Ozon’s unlikely heroes (only lightly fictionalized) are three adult male survivors (top French talents Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, and Swann Arlaud) of the venerable and predatory Father Bernard Preynat. Discovering that their former tormentor has been reassigned to Lyon and has apparently been shielded all along by a heavenly institution hellbent on silence, the men—still scarred and facing near-insurmountable challenges to their faith—begin a movement to bring the Church to account. Sensitively performed and tautly constructed, this film—winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlin—is a laser-focused call to justice.
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