The body of a real estate developer and candidate for mayor of Bordeaux is found murdered in his home according to a ritual reserved, two centuries earlier, for runaway black slaves. Discovered by his closest friends, all, like the victim, from prominent Bordeaux families with a troubled past during the slave trade. On the spot, Clémence Lacoste, a police captain accustomed to the field and a native Bordelais, is forced to team up with Lieutenant Antoine Rosy, an elegant Parisian more accustomed to the office than the field... To find the killer and stop this series of murders, our two heroes are going to uncover buried elements of Bordeaux's history... but above all of their own past and origins.
Acting
Erika Sainte's weary authority vs. David Baïot's fish-out-of-water elegance.
Writing
Ritual murders that actually illuminate history, not just shock.
Production
Bordeaux's gilded architecture as complicit character.
Director
Philippe Niang
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Bordeaux was France's leading slave trade port; over 500 voyages departed from its docks. The film's ritual murders reference actual Code Noir punishments.
The casting of David Baïot—a Black actor from the Parisian banlieues—as the 'outsider' to provincial whiteness deliberately inverts typical French crime drama dynamics.
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