Patrick Barberis. Retrospective

The Shadows of the Devils’ Island / Les ombres du bagne

Year
2006
Duration
54’
Director
Patrick Barberis

“I have been commissioned to give you a new life. In France, you are criminals but here I only want to see repenting men”. Such were the words of the senior superintendent of French Guiana to the first convicts who arrived on The Iles du Salut (Salvation Islands) in August 1852. The 298 common law criminals and 3 political deportees had left Brest a few weeks earlier. First of a long list, this landing of convicts marked the beginning of the most disastrous period of Guiana history and the darkest times of the French penitentiary administration system, that of penal colony which lasted one century. With open air prisons and hundreds of interdependent ramifications, each of them being organized very differently, Guiana penal colonies still captivate and are little-known. Guiana penal colonies used to be, and remain, a French Eldorado: a South American continent where people dreamt of power and wealth and yet became the endless nightmare of thousands of convicts. Penal colonies transformed French Guiana into the so-called land of “the dry guillotine”, a “path towards rottenness” where all “prison sentences” were in fact life sentences. Out of 70,000 men sent to penal colonies, less than 9,000 survived their sentences.

Production
ARTE France, TEMPS NOIR
Awards
Prix du scenario historique aux Rendez-vous de l'histoire de Blois (2002)
Director
Patrick Barberis
21 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL
 31 — 9 
May
June 2024
Vietnam, Treason by the Media / Vietnam, la trahison des medias
Patrick Barberis. Retrospective
Vietnam, Treason by the Media / Vietnam, la trahison des medias
Year
2008
Director
Patrick Barberis
Duration
89’
Patrick Barberis. Retrospective
Roman Carmen, Filmmaker of the Revolution / Roman Carmen, un cineaste…
Patrick Barberis. Retrospective
Roman Carmen, Filmmaker of the Revolution / Roman Carmen, un cineaste au service de la Revolution
Year
2001
Director
Patrick Barberis
Duration
90’
Patrick Barberis. Retrospective