PriMed proud to present Manon Loizeau’s film “Syrie, le cri étouffé”.

As part of the 21st PriMed, Manon Loizeau was at Marseille’s Bibliothèque de l’Alcazar on Thursday November 23rd to present her film.

The Centre Méditerranéen de la Communication Audiovisuelle (CMCA), the festival organizer, is proud to have shown this heart-rending documentary about a situation as intolerable as it is revolting. The PriMed jury awarded it the Grand Prix Mediterranean Issues.

In this soon-to-be-broadcast documentary, director Manon Loizeau interviews women who have been raped in Bashar al-Assad’s prisons. Rape as a weapon of war is the most hushed-up crime in Syria. Organized, thought out, these crimes tap into one of the deepest taboos in traditional Syrian society. The perpetrators, who still work in the country’s prisons, rely on their victims’ silence – because if a woman speaks out, she risks rejection by her own family, even a death sentence.

On Thursday December 7th Manon Loizeau’s Syrie, le cri étouffé, co-written with Annick Cojean, will be broadcast on France 2 at 11.00pm. The public service channel is devoting an entire evening to Syria, with a portrait of Bashar al-Assad by Laurent Delahousse in prime time at 8:55 pm.

At the 15th International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva last March, Syrie, le cri étouffé (Silent War) won the World Organization Against Torture Award. It was also given Special Mention by the jury of the Italia Prize and won the Audience Award at DOK Leipzig.