
When Shame Changes Sides: The Case of Gisèle Pelicot
For ten years in Mazan, in the south of France, Gisèle Pelicot was drugged by her husband, who then invited men from the area into their home to assault her while she was unconscious. This film tells that story through the eyes of her daughter, Caroline Darian, who speaks at length for the first time about her mother's ordeal and her own experience sitting through the trial. Darian has since become a public voice on drug-facilitated sexual violence, an aspect of these crimes she argues courts routinely overlook. The documentary also covers Gisèle Pelicot's decision to waive her anonymity and demand an open trial, breaking with the usual practice of closed-door rape proceedings in France, a choice that turned her case into a national reckoning. Producer Andrea Rawlins-Gaston and director Linda Bendali bring in other victims of drug-facilitated assault, whose testimony shows the Pelicot case is not isolated but part of a wider pattern involving easily available medication. Interviews carry the film throughout, building toward its central argument: shame belongs with the perpetrator, not the victim.