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INTIMATE CONVICTION

CONVICTION INTIME

By Benoît SOURTY

Social issues - Development 2026

On the eve of starting a family and as she begins her career as a prosecutor in a small coastal town, Roxane finds her convictions to represent and defend an increasingly violent society shaken by a drug trafficking case involving a recidivist minor.

- Year of production
- 2026
- Genres
- Social issues, Documentary
- Countries
- FRANCE
- Languages
- FRENCH
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Benoît SOURTY
- Writer(s)
- Benoît SOURTY
- Synopsis
- Roxane L., a 32-year-old single woman, has just moved to a coastal town in Normandy, after graduating from the Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature. Roxane is a public prosecutor. The pace of her life is hectic, with cases piling up on her desk: a marginal shoplifting offence, a complaint of domestic violence or an assault outside a nightclub. Every day, Roxane's daily life is marked by an aggressive image of a society in pain, violence represented by the images of current events on every screen. So as not to lose the meaning of her work, Roxane likes to travel. She goes to schools for educators to talk about her work, visits police custody facilities, talks to the police, goes back to the scene of the crime, meets the accused and the victims to find out about the context. All these scenes become the embodiment of cases that are not just files piled up on his desk, but filmed encounters. And then one day, the story of a juvenile delinquent involved in drug trafficking.
  Appointments with the young minor and his lawyer, a report on the investigation by the examining magistrate she had appointed, a visit to an educational center to understand the work of the educators, an informal discussion with the president of the court about the case even before the scheduled hearing. The case of the recidivist juvenile delinquent gives Roxane a feeling of powerlessness. The justice system's, but also her own. Periods of doubt shake her convictions. What if she'd taken the wrong path? Why didn't she become a judge or a lawyer? Why should she want to represent society? What does she want to repair?
  So there are valves. Every morning, Roxane goes to the gym, puts on her leather gloves and lets off steam against a punching bag. The blows alternate with the scenes that haunt her daily life. The policeman who calls her every morning to give her an update on the night's various arrests - punches in the punching bag - the minor who awkwardly tells the judge why he's trafficking - punches in the punching bag - the young delinquent client's lawyer's plea - punches in the punching bag - Roxane's stern indictment during the court hearing, and finally the judge's sentence. The session is over, and Roxane is exhausted. The punching bag swings at the end of its chain.
  On the eve of starting a family, Roxane sees juvenile delinquency paint a distressing picture. The time she spends with her secretary is a time for confidences in the evenings, after a hard day's work. The two women, from different generations, form a close bond, and the reassuring words of the eldest accompany Roxane on her car rides along the coast when the hectic pace of everyday life resumes the following morning. Roxane's conviction that she belongs, that she's useful, is strengthened