When the State kills
A film by Stephen Trombley
All over the world, the death penalty is making a resounding, just short of triumphal, return. In more than half of the planet´s nations, governments execute men and women in the prime of their lives. In places where capital punishment has been abolished, the ´people´ are demanding its reinstatement. The overall figures for verdicts of capital punishment and executions is on the way up. It could be said, in a sinister way, that it is one of the end of the century´s ´fashions´. Why and how do we accept murders committed in the name of the law? Does this apparently irrepressible need for the ultimate punishment come simply from cultural determination? Is vengeance an elementary instinct which is possible to fight though we may never eventually eradicate it once and for all? Is the abolition movement an outdated historical oddity, or a flash-in-the-pan ideal? Is the sacred power of execution destined to reign until the end of time ?

To punish or repair
A film by Philippe Saint-Gilles
Observations and reflections concerning the problems brought about and the solutions proposed in countries where the death penalty has been outlawed…