shortlisted webdocumentary

The imprisoned body

Article published on the 2009-08-24 Latest update 2009-08-26 16:26 TU

(Photo: www.lemonde.fr/prisons)

Watch the webdocumentary

Lemonde.fr has been producing, co-producing and hosting multimedia narratives since 2002.

The editor-in-chief of lemonde.fr, Boriz Razon, worked with a small team of four people on The imprisoned body. These are journalist Soren Seelow and photographer Léo Ridet along with producers Bernard Monasterolo and Eric Dedier. Karim ElHadj produced the soundtrack.

It took five months to produce the piece, from the on-the-ground work to the uploading. Given the nature of the subject, a lot of this time was spent waiting for official authorisations, to actually get in the door.

"We wanted to talk about suicide in prison. Every so often the issue flares up in the media but we never take the time to really examine the question of the incarcerated body and what it suffers," says Razon.

He says the French media tends to turn its attention to prisons when they explode in violence or when reports come out criticising conditions.

"We wanted to talk about the long-term effects on the body and the spirit of prisoners," says Razon, "and to follow on from this horrible observation: every week several people kill themselves rather than continue living in prison".

"In our French prisons," he adds.

The piece uses the stories of four former prisoners, Hélène, Hafed, Djamel and Hugo and recounts their slow physical degradation in prison.

The difficulty with this subject, says Razon, was finding the right tone, the right distance and the right images.

"Not to do too much, or too little", he says.