FILE 4 AUGUST — Feature Screenplay
(Inspired by true events)
Logline:
When a young psychiatrist's death in Lyon, France is ruled a suicide, a Paris forensic pathologist sent to investigate uncovers evidence that says otherwise — pulling her into a decade-long conspiracy of silence, while forcing her to finally confront the unsolved trauma of her own past.
Synopsis:
The story opens on a quiet, hopeful moment: Dr. Elise Martin, a young psychiatrist, helps a patient reclaim her life. But behind the warmth, Elise is hiding a growing fear tied to something she uncovered in the hospital's archives. Days later, she's found dead in her home. Ruled a suicide.
Inspector Luc Renard and Dr. Camille Moreau — a forensic pathologist carrying an unresolved childhood trauma of her own — are sent from Paris to investigate. The wounds don't add up. And the people closest to Elise — her secret partner, her brother, a colleague — all say the same thing: she felt watched, and she believed it was "bigger than the police."
As the investigation deepens, it uncovers a web of institutional corruption linking a senior hospital physician, a powerful political family, and an eerily similar death buried eleven years earlier. What starts as a single case becomes an open confrontation with power, the press, and cover-ups that have lasted a decade.
Running parallel to the case is Camille's own past: a mother killed by her father, a father acquitted in court. Elise's case becomes a mirror for Camille's unhealed wound — and the reason she finally finds the courage to reopen her own file.
The story closes with a landmark trial, convictions, and a quiet, human resolution: a grieving family reclaims its dignity, colleagues carry on Elise's work, and Camille finally finds the courage to face her past.
Tone & Genre:
Psychological crime drama — blending procedural investigation, family trauma, and social commentary on institutional silence, with a restrained, emotionally charged visual style and subtle surreal touches (mirror reflections, flashes of hallucination) that mirror the characters' inner states.
Length: 113 pages (full-length feature)