Patric Jean - director of La Raison du Plus Fort

by Federico Greco

Young French director Patric Jean is interviewed during the Pesaro International Film Festival of New Cinema 2003, where he presented his film La Raison du Plus Fort within the retrospective dedicated to French Contemporary Cinema.
La Raison du Plus Fort is a documentary that tracks a society that instead of fighting against poverty, fights against the poor. As he says "the poor in general and young immigrants in particular are the source of all fears". The film breaks down the clichés and features the characters in their humaneness, in a jail cell, in the dock or down in the basement of a settlement, showing their emotions, desires, fears and despair.
In the interview the director explains how the idea of the documentary came from a report commissioned by the Belgian Minister of Justice (Verwilngen) on the connection between immigration and delinquency.
Although the report "shocked sociologists and criminologists", it was made easily accessible, "as if by mistake". From his point of view this was also possible for the positivism the film carries.

Read the interview