In a powerful documentary that has not yet been screened in cinemas, French director Sarah Franco-Ferrer highlights the true horror of war, far removed from the usual Hollywood treatment of human conflict. 'La liberté nous aime encore' ('Freedom Still Loves Us') begins with some of the speech given in Stockholm by French writer Albert Camus on December 10th 1957 when he accepted the Nobel Prize for literature. It also includes extracts from the Book of Job in the Old Testament. But above all it contains interviews with a series of people – Patrick Clervoy a former psychiatrist in the French army, a photo-journalist, war correspondents (including Jean-Pierre Perrin who works regularly with Mediapart), a young French staff sergeant who is part of an elite sniper unit and a former member of the Resistance - all with direct experience of conflict. Each of them talks thoughtfully about the madness of war, the barbarity, but also of the good that men are capable of as well as the bad.
Set against a backdrop of beautifully compiled and in some cases previously-unseen archive footage, these first-hand accounts highlight humanity's fragility and the terrible and shocking capacity that humans have for destruction. Above all the documentary is a meditation on the essence of life and on the courage and commitment it takes to fight against inhumanity.
'La liberté nous aime encore' ('Freedom Still Loves Us') is 111 minutes long and is in French with English subtitles. It was directed and edited by Sarah Franco-Ferrer. Production by Quetzal- Sarah Franco-Ferrer.