Product Description

In 2002, three French neofacist skinheads went to a public park in Rheims, looking for an Arab to attack when they came across Francios Chenu, a young gay man. When he refused to deny his homosexuality when taunted with gay slurs, he was viciously beaten and thrown unconscious into a pond, where he drowned. In this deepky moving, award-winning documentary, Chenu's family reflects on the murder of their 29-year-old son and courageously tries to move beyond feelings of hate and revenge. Filmed in classic verite style, without unecessary exposition or narration and in a non-sensationalist manner, Beyond Hatred explores the social and pyschological roots of homophobia and similar hate crimes, and demonstrates the emotional maturity that enables the rare human quality of forgiveness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28579 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-05-20
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

Review
Powerful, emotionallly intense. Simply but boldly constructed....loaded with tension. --The BBC

Review
Flawlessly directed...powerful without being preachy. --SF Indiefest

Review
Emotional yet straightforward, it leaves you not with a sense of grief for what happened, but with a sense of hope in humanity. --OnMilwaukee.com

Customer Reviews

The Road to Forgiveness
"Beyond Hatred"

The Road to Forgiveness

Amos Lassen

Opening in New York on June 15th at the Village Cinema is a movie that has caused a great deal of buzz, "Beyond Hatred" ("Au Dela de la Haine"). It is now available on DVD from First Run Films. It is a documentary, a moving story of the homophobic murder on September 13, 2003 of Francois Chenu by three skinheads. "Beyond Hatred" shows the details of the crime but it basically puts its focus on what happened afterwards. The director, Oliver Meyrou traveled to Reims before the trials of the murderers so that he could get to know Francois' family and the attorneys for the accused.
Before and as the trial continued, he sought to learn about the men who had been accused of the deed and their backgrounds of hatred, prejudice and intolerance. What we get is not a movie about homophobia but one about the nature of tolerance.
When Francois admitted that he was gay, he was beaten to death and thrown into a pond. The perpetrators were know to law enforcement and were caught very quickly. Yet two years after the happening, Francois' parents were still struggling with both anger and grief. However, part of their struggle was to fight for the respect of others and tolerance.
Meyrou followed it all and he soon found himself on a different road than the one he expected--he was on the road to forgiveness.
Filled with emotion--both raw and restrained, the movie shows with somber force the dignified restraint of the Chenu family and how they managed to control their anger and loss. The film rivets the viewer I its amazingly compassionate view of what happened. There is a depth here not usually seen in documentaries. Filmed in the style of cinema verite, Meyrou lets the story unfold at its own pace and the catharsis it brings, it a catharsis for the entire world. The Chenu family was able to move past anger and revenge and we have one of the most dignified and poignant documentaries ever made.