12 Days

Around ninety thousand people a year in France are admitted to psychiatric care without their consent. The law requires the hospital to bring every one of them before a judge within twelve days. Raymond Depardon puts his camera in exactly that room, at the table between the judge and the patient. Nobody comments, nobody narrates; there are only those hearings. It was filmed at the Vinatier hospital in Lyon. Depardon holds on the patient's face and then the judge's, separately and without cutting away, and Alexandre Desplat wrote the music. It screened at Cannes in 2017 and was nominated for the César for best documentary the following year. For eighty-seven minutes it puts the viewer in the position of the person who has to decide.