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Director(s):
PIZZINI (Agnès), MIRGUET (OLIVIER)
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Producer(s):
TOURNEZ S'IL VOUS PLAIT, ARTE FRANCE
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Territories:
Worldwide.
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Production year:
2024
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Language(s):
German, English, French
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Rights:
TV, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD
It took Derf Backderf, Jeffrey Dahmer's old high school friend, almost twenty years to publish My Friend Dahmer, his multi-award-winning graphic novel that looks back at the origins of the infamous serial killer. Empathetic while never excusing Dahmer’s murders, disturbing but necessary, his story takes us into the depths of human madness.
Upset by who his classmate had become, Backderf then decided to write a graphic novel shortly after he heard about Dahmer’s crimes. He then looked back at his own story, and questioned his friendship, a process that took him twenty years. Twenty years to tell the story of Jeffrey Dahmer, a shy little boy who looked just like him, but who carried a monster inside him, a monster no one would see. Twenty years of wondering how he could maintain the right distance with his character. How do you tell the story of your “friend” without making the reader feel empathy for this future killer? How do you keep the right distance from a monster in the making? And how do you tell your own story without fearing to reflect on your own responsibility, while at the same time showing respect for the victims' families? We will look at this slow and painful process, exploring with Backderf himself - what a privilege - the genesis of his work. The difficult beginnings, the setbacks, and finally, the consecration of a work that revealed Backderf to the public as an essential cartoonist.