BREAKING THE SILENCE

Après le silence

North American Premiere | France | 2022 | Drama | 90 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Jérôme Cornuau
Written by: Raphaëlle Roudaut
Produced by: Guillaume Renouil, Dorothée Woillez, Gaëlle Cholet (Elephant Story)
Cinematography: Emmanuel de Fleur
Film Editing: Solal Cornuau
Original Score: David Menke
Cast: Caroline Anglade (Marina), Clovis Cornillac (Grégory), Alice David (Chloé), Samira Lachhab (Samia), Farid Bentoumi (Karim), Noam Halegua (Tom)
International Sales: Film & Picture
Original Broadcast: France 2, November 2022

After years of sexual abuse that ended in separation, Marina finally finds the courage to walk into a police station and file a complaint against her ex-partner and the father of her 6-year-old son, accusing him of rape. As essential as that declaration is to her own healing process, without physical evidence, the accusation is almost impossible to prove. Her battle has barely begun, yet she forges on. In 2021, some 24,800 rape charges were filed in France — more than half of them committed by the victim’s own partner. Judicious direction, a complex script and Caroline Anglade’s measured, poignant performance as the fragile-yet-formidable Marina bring those statistics to life, and make Breaking the Silence a remarkable TV movie on the often-taboo subject of marital rape.

Veteran writer/director/producer Jérôme Cornuau has worked on music videos and television series since 1995, including such acclaimed shows as Maison Close (2013), Le Mystère du Lac (2015), Le Tueur du lac (2017), Guyane (2018) and Fugueuse (2021). His feature films include Bouge! (1997), What I Did for Love (1998), Dissonances (2003), The Tiger Brigades (2006), The Crossing (2012), and Chic! (COLCOA 2016).  Breaking the Silence was first aired on France 2 in November of last year, as part of a special evening in honor of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.