The Righteous

Who hasn't cast an eye at a bloody story splashed across the front page of a tabloid? Or fought against an urge to peer through a half-open door? In the criminal courts of Quebec, a group of unique courtroom visitors avidly follow criminal trials, putting the lives of their peers under the microscope. These three retirees spend their days searching for the good, the bad--and the truth.

Leavening the sobriety of judicial proceedings with a healthy dose of irony, directors Karina Goma and Stéphane Thibault use a style that listens almost as much as it watches, taking a critical but also warm look at a world unknown to most of us. Shot over several months, with the full cooperation of its protagonists, the film gives us a chance to participate fully in the strange lives of courthouse observers. Each of them, in their own way, reminds us of our own individual and collective fascination with the theatre of life. In French with English subtitles.