Interview

France: a prison without bars?

Casabianda is currently the only prison without bars on French soil. Guillaume Massart filmed a documentary La liberté (In the Open).

Casabianda is currently the only prison without bars on French soil. This detention centre, located on the east coast of Corsica in Aléria, extends over about 3700 acres where the inmates live and work. Opened in 1948, it can house up to 194 individuals who go there to finish long sentences for sexual offences against family members. There were 135 of them when Guillaume Massart filmed them for his documentary La Liberté (In the Open). We asked him three questions.

The film went from being one of scenery to one of portraits, from an observation documentary to a conversation documentary.

The penalty of incarceration is meant to be a deterrent, but it is only a symbol, a fantasy.