Film screening: "12 Days"

Description

The documentary film 12 Days (12 Jours), directed by Raymond Depardon, centers on the French legal system's requirement for any individual who has been hospitalized in a psychiatric facility against his or her will to appear before a specialized judge twelve days after being admitted. The judge determines whether the hospitalization should be prolonged.

Depardon, a master documentarian with extensive experience filming both the French legal system and in hospitals, was given exceptional access to several of these closed hearings at a facility near Lyon. The case of one patient's workplace harassment at a telecommunications firm sketches a terrifying picture of our vulnerability under the reign of late capitalism. As always, Depardon remains a stoic but empathetic witness to the world's sorrows.

This event is part of the Johns Hopkins 2019 Tournées Film Festival. The film is presented by Zvezdana Ostojic, a graduate student of German and Romance Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins. The film is in French with English subtitles.

The Tournées Film Festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l'Image Animée (CNC), the Franco-American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation, and Highbrow Entertainment.

Festival sponsors include the Johns Hopkins University Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures, the Program in Film and Media Studies, the Center for Advanced Media Studies, the Alexander Grass Humanities Center, the French Program, and the Graduate Representative Organization.