False Confessions

Documentary

60 min. and 91 min.

Selected for LA Film Festival, September 2018. Would you confess to a crime you did not commit? Each year innumerable American suspects do, and experts say that trained interrogators can get anybody to confess to anything.

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Info

During the process of a police interrogation in the US, it is common to use the Reid technique, a complex psychological tactic to get suspects to confess to crimes. Over the years, behind closed doors, in rooms devoid of recording devices to document the process, trained interrogators have been monumentally successful at getting defendants to confess often without regard for whether or not the suspect is actually guilty of the offense they are charged with. Defense attorney Jane Fisher-Byrialsen is determined to put an end to interrogation techniques that all too often pressure innocent people into false confessions. The film follows four cases, all involving false confessions, and examines the psychological aspect of how people end up confessing to crimes they have not committed along with the consequences of these confessions for those accused, for their families and for society at large. False Confessions will show just how easily a person can be trapped in the tunnel vision of an overconfident interrogator, who believes you are the perpetrator.

  • Director

    Katrine Philip

  • Writer

    Katrine Sahlstrøm

  • Produced by

    Good Company Pictures in ass. with Gebrüder Beetz, TV 2, NDR, VGTV, NRK & YesDocu

  • Format

    Feature & 60 min.

  • Release

    2018

Awards & festivals

  • Winner Audience Award

    CPH: DOX

    2018

  • Nominated F:ACT AWARD

    CPH: DOX

    2018

  • Special Prize Excellence in Social Justice Story telling

    LA Film Festival

    2018

  • Nominated NP Awards

    Nordisk Panorama

    2018