So Help Me God is the first ever feature length Strip-Tease documentary.
Strip-Tease is a Belgian television documentary program created in 1985 by the Belgian RTBF. It became a popular and critical success, celebrated for coining a new idiom representing everyday life in Belgium and France. These observations and sketches, often very funny or emotional, sometimes turned to the disturbing. It was the TV before reality TV, in which storytelling gave real people an epic dimension. Their aim was to create a new kind of documentary in which the commentators disappeared, giving the subjects themselves a platform from which to speak and gradually “undress” or reveal their private lives to the audience, allowing viewers to learn about them on a deeper, uncensored level.
The extraordinary, offbeat judge Anne Gruwez takes us behind the scenes of real life criminal investigations. For three years the satirical team behind the cult TV series Strip-Tease captured what no one had dared film before. Unapologetic and politically incorrect. You won’t believe your eyes.
It’s not cinema: it’s worse!
Original title: NI JUGE, NI SOUMISE
2017 – 1h39 – France, Belgium – French
World Premiere – SIFF SAN SEBASTIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL – Official Selection, In Competition – 2017 – Special Mention of the Jury for Best “Actress”
César for Best Documentary (France) and Magritte for Best Documentary (Belgium)
FIFIGROT (GROLAND FILM FESTIVAL) – Toulouse, France – 2017
Amphore d’or (Best film Award) & Amphore du Peuple (Audience Award)
BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL – Dare Section – London, UK – 2017
FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINEMA – Temps Section – Montréal, Canada – 2017
IDFA – Best of Fest Section – Amsterdam, Netherlands – 2017
MAR DEL PLATA INT’L FILM FESTIVAL – Documentary Section – Mar Del Plata, Argentina – 2017
FESTIVAL EUROPÉEN DES ARCS – Documentary Section – Les Arcs, France – 2017
PALM SPRINGS FILM FESTIVAL – True Stories section – Palm Springs, USA – 2018
GÖTEBORG FILM FESTIVAL – Göteborg, Sweden – 2018
VILNIUS FILM FESTIVAL – Vilnius, Lithuania – 2018
ISTANBUL FILM FESTIVAL – Istanbul, Turkey – 2018
MILLENNIUM DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY FILM FESTIVAL – Warsaw, Poland – 2018
GOLDEN APRICOT – YEREVAN INT’L FILM FESTIVAL – Yerevan, Armenia – 2018
WEST LAKE INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL – Glory of Documentary – Hangzhou, China – 2018
MY FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL – Online, Worldwide – 2019