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On 19 May 1999, forty-nine-year-old Francis Verstaen, a worker at the Volkswagen plant in Forest, Belgium, for the past 11 years, shot himself in the head at work in front of some two dozen co-workers. Reading about the incident in the newspapers, Agnès Lejeune and Eric Monami conducted an inquiry. They spoke to the worker's family and colleagues. Victim of a work accident in 1993, Francis Verstaen had complained of back pains. But the court, upholding the findings of Volkwagen's insurance company, ruled there was no relation between his pains and the accident. Run-down and depressed, Verstaen, formerly hardworking and conscientious, had difficulty getting back into the assembly line work rhythm. He came under pressure both from managerial staff and coworkers. His diaries, found after his death, relate his long, painful experiences, up till that fateful day... In the months after Verstaen's death, his family received no news from management or factory plant coworkers. When the filmmakers stepped in, people began to speak, however timidly. What emerged gradually is a terrible indictment of an entire system.

Belgium / France - 2001 - 1 h 08 mn - Betacam Digital - Colour

Réalisation Agnès Lejeune, Eric Monami Image Colin Wilput Son Thierry Massin, Bruno Di Liberto Montage Frédérique Romus

Production Radiotélévision belge de la communauté française - Liège, Palais des Congrès, Esplanade de l'Europe, 4020 Liège, Belgique Tél : +32 4344 7382 Fax : +32 4344 7394 E-mail : lph@rtbf.be Co-Production Arte Belgique, ARTE France

Ventes Radiotélévision belge de la communauté française, 52 boulevard Auguste-Reyers, Boîte 077, 1044 Bruxelles, Belgique Tél : +32 (0)2 737 2111 Fax : +32 (0)2 737 4574 E-mail : artebelgique@rtbf.be