“No one put it there”: 12 -year -old night director reveals a very secret case in the skin in its new powerful thriller

Three years ago, Dominic Mall (Harry, a friend who wants to have good, leming, only animals) has caused a feeling at the Cannes Premier Festival, 12 years old, an unforgettable thriller inspired by real story.

The glory of criticism and society, this visceral and attractive artistic film, won everything in 2023 at the Caesar Ceremony, the best of the best achievements, the best adaptation, the best actor in the hope of the best man, the best sound and especially the best film.

This year, the director returned to the Cannes Film Festival – this time in the official competition – a new thriller on the hot topic: police mistakes and especially what happened during the 2018 demonstrations of yellow vests.

CO -Always written with Gilles Marchand employee, the file 137 is not inspired by special random but real facts. Leah Drucker portrays Stephania, an IGPN investigator, a police police about a case that concerns her life, her convicts, and her gaze to the public, her hierarchy and her work.

A tense manifestation, a young man injured by a LBD blow, circumstances to determine responsibility …

After “La Nuit Du 12”, you once again follow the police figure whose life, the vision of society, and its activities will be offended by singular deeds. What did he want to start, which made the “File 137”?

Dominic Mall: From the beginning, first and foremost, this is a curiosity towards this IGPN Institute, which we know badly or not. No one landed there except the people who work there. This is a very critical institution, as he hated other police officers and others who believe that IGPN builds investigations and protects the police.

What is back on this? Is it true? I already wanted to see if it was possible to get a foot on it to find out functioning, I couldn’t believe it very much. And then, in a very unexpected way, I also think about the success of the “12 night” and the fact that I showed the work of criminal brigades in a very sincere and sincere way, it would allow me to allow me to spend a few days in IGPN.

I think I was the first exterior that I could do. Otherwise, I couldn’t make a movie. I really had to watch the eyes of how he was going to hear and especially with investigators and investigators, especially investigators, as there is a greater share of women in this service than others.

Very fast, I also knew that in parallel with IGPN, which I was also interested, it was still maintained. Because this is what really affects our democracy, the right to demonstrate. At one point, if a lot of injuries are injured during demonstrations, people will no longer dare to demonstrate, which is still quite problematic.

There was all this interrogation, all this topic. Both in this investigation gather in the demonstration of the demonstrator during the demonstration. Because IGPN also investigate, for example, in cases of corruption. I am less interested in because it was a more inter -poster problem than a social problem.

As in La Nuit Du 12, the victim here has shown that the yellow vests injured in the LBD from the police are not largely large and hanging on the whole film. But the “File 137” ends on it, is it important to keep the last word for the victim?

Although “12th night”, we see it from the beginning, but since it is dead, we no longer see it. After that, it hinders all the other films. But in the “File 137” he was seriously injured, leaving the field freely to make it again appear. He cannot be audited because he is in the hospital, but we see him.

There are parts of the video that his family shot in Paris, in Paris, or in the words of the people of his family who perform the audience, but he is very distinguished.

But, as in the “12th night”, the challenge was still that the victim had recorded the whole film and we would not forget that there was someone who was damaged by this shot. And it was true for me, suddenly, it was very important for him to finally be given the floor.

That it is clear that the character of the investigator, even if we are compassionate with him, and that we understand his difficulties and his evolution, he is not a sacrifice, while he is, yes. I needed to finish it and give it to the floor.

What do you hope or fear from the public or the film involved when it came out in the cinema? This can be brushed because the subject is separated, and that police violence is not always recognized in the police or in high political fields.

The problem is that the slightest criticism or to say that “this police officer is clearly disintegrated, has a problem of violence and that the police have nothing to do” as a criticism of the entire institution. In contrast, those who are very anti-political do not realize that they are subject to very difficult situations, that they are really violent demonstrators and there are also victims of police.

It would be completely opposite and uninteresting to create a small communication space with this film. I tell myself that this can help to open the fronts because they are all blocked and unable to hear others.

But there are also individual responsibility and there are police officers who should not be in the police. In addition to being afraid of their reference, as the character of Lam Drucker says, “Every policeman who wants to do his job will end and there will only be assholes.”

With this film, it is not just to say that “everything is much more difficult than it”. But I think that if we can already understand some mechanisms, we can think about how to fix it, how to make things. For me, the problem is much more political.

This is higher from the moment when power considers the police as Bulgarka, who claims their power and not as a police that should be in the service of citizens and who should be peace, not just the power of order.

That’s where you have to work. And the fact that, for example, representatives of politics or power cannot admit that illegitimate violence has occurred. Anyway, for me, all violence is illegitimate. There may be a legitimate force, but all violence is illegitimate for me.

The idea of ​​legal violence is not acceptable to me. Power must recognize that there was illegitimate violence against people who were peacefully portrayed in the world for the best purposes who simply wanted to manifest.

If the film only contributed to it, it would have been a small step forward, but I have the impression that there is such a disability of politicians and such a lack of self -criticism, it is despair.

Interview by Mégane Choquet on May 16, 2025 in Cannes.

The film “File 137” was released on November 19 in the cinema.