Lebanon, Arabic - 75 min
Feature Documentary
TOTAL BUDGET
US $120,000
CONTACT
zeina@catharsislcdt.org
009613336932
The film follows inmates in the Roumieh Prison (Lebanon) who produced a theater play about their fellow mentally ill inmates. The Lebanese Penal Code stipulates that ‘insane’ offenders are incarcerated until there’s evidence of ‘being cured,’ however, mental illness is managed, not cured.
From Lebanon’s notoriously tough Roumieh Prison, Daccache’s third carceral-culture production emerges, shedding the light on inmates suffering from mental illness with the fate of staying in prison forever and ever; some have been in prison for over 35 years.
Indeed, the Lebanese Penal Code states that ‘insane’ offenders (yes, it states ‘insane’ instead of ‘mentally ill’) should be incarcerated in a special psychiatry unit until there’s evidence of being ‘cured from insanity’ (whereas mental illness can only be managed with proper treatment, and not ‘cured’).
The film involves ‘regular’ inmates to represent, in a theater production, the stories of the inmates suffering from mental illness and convey their messages to the outside world, as the ones suffering from mental illness cannot represent their own stories on stage.
This is the third feature documentary I’m making about Lebanese prisons. Both of my previous projects have had a lot of success as an eye-opener about this international matter, and in reforming prisons and the judiciary in Lebanon. It was after 12 Angry Lebanese, the project produced in 2009 in the Roumieh Prison, that a 2002 law to reduce prison sentences for good behavior was finally implemented. The Scheherazade in Baabda (2012) project that focuses on the female prison of Baabda shed light on and led to the passing of a law against domestic violence, while my current project Blue Inmates portrays the awful situation of mentally ill offenders and pushes the government to improve mental health practices in Lebanese prisons and reform the law for mentally ill inmates, hopefully changing the lives of many forgotten persons behind bars—and preventing a similar ‘life sentence’ fate for future inmates.
2020: Blue Inmates
2013: Scheherazade’s Diary
2009: 12 Angry Lebanese: The Documentary
2007: Any