A docu-fiction that zaps a little (too much?) The presumption of innocence

"An unidentified television object", a "documented fiction", a "docu-fiction" … Difficult to describe Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: In the head of the suspect, broadcast on
M6 this Monday. But on the side of the channel, we are pleased to present a new format that "renews the codes of the genre". Director
Ionut Teianu spent a year and a half re-doing the entire investigation to develop his own theory of the killing of Nantes.

Let's remember the facts. On April 21, 2011, the bodies of Agnes Dupont Ligonnès and her four children (Arthur, Thomas, Anne, Benoît) are found by the police under the roof of the family home, covered with rubble, earth and quicklime. The remains of the two labradors of the family are also dug up. Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, the father of family, has vanished. He has not left any traces since April 15 when he was spotted leaving, on foot, a Formula 1 hotel in Roquebrune-sur-Argens (Var), with a cover on the back that could contain his rifle. . Did he kill his family to avoid facing his financial hardship? Reported many times throughout France and abroad, it has never been found. Did he commit suicide? Is it still short? The mystery remains whole.

"A very strong bias"

Halfway between Let the accused enter and The opponent (the comparison is flattering), Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: In the head of the suspect intertwine testimonies of close faces camera and scenes of fiction with Erico Salamone in the skin of the antihero. The scenes played and the interviews intersect to guide the viewer towards a single thesis: Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès drugged and killed his entire family to avoid social humiliation. The docu-fiction evacuated at the same time
all the elements that could invalidate this track (the neighbor who claims to have seen Agnes a few days after the supposed night of the murders, for example).

"We wanted to have a strong bias," says Teianu. We spoke to his family, his former friends, some investigators, judges … We gathered a maximum of elements to, then, make sense. And the correspondence found on his computer by the cyber-investigator "Christophe la vérité" served as a guiding thread for the scenario. "Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès wrote all the time, he even wrote to his wife and children with whom he lived to philosophize about life, give them advice." It's easier to imagine what's going on in Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès's head when you have access to his daily thoughts. Except that the film seems to have forgotten that in the absence of trial, the suspect is presumed innocent.

"All accuses Xavier"

Ionut Teianu takes his bias. "We did not want to do an investigative report or something impartial," he retorted. When we know that during the two or three months preceding the murders, he buys bullets, he takes shooting lessons, he buys lime … Everything in the court file overwhelms him. " And his childhood friend, Bruno de Stabenrath, agrees in the same direction. "All accuses Xavier. He knew that we would find the blue cards of the purchase of lime, he did not care about all that. It is in his mode of operation, he decides to eliminate them and he goes away, "he badyzes before affirming in a breath of emotion. "He's still my friend."

The film leaves no room for doubt, it brings to the screen the murders. Erico Salamone, who lends his features to the suspect, composes a troubled character and quite credible. We discover a Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, after his flight, who confesses his crimes in front of the camera of his mobile phone. M6 holds his culprit. Today, the investigation has not established a scenario, but the docu-fiction of the sixth channel is responsible for the trial. "It's a fiction", we repeat in a loop. We are rebadured, then.