By the Grace of God

By the Grace of God (Grâce à Dieu, 2019) is a François Ozon drama you can watch online on iFILM. Alexandre, a married father in Lyon, learns that the priest who molested him as a boy is still working with children — and he refuses to look away.

He starts with a letter to the diocese. When the church stalls, he reaches out to other men the same priest abused. Two of them step forward: Francois, a hot-tempered atheist who wants noise and headlines, and Emmanuel, fragile and broke, for whom speaking up costs the most. Ozon tells it in a near-documentary register, built from emails, phone calls and plain conversation rather than melodrama, which is exactly why it lands.

The film draws on the real Lyon abuse case that was still unfolding in French courts while it shot; lawyers tried to block its release. It went on to take the Grand Jury Prize, the Silver Bear, at the Berlin Film Festival. A patient, clear-eyed look at how hard it is to say out loud what you were raised to keep quiet. Stream By the Grace of God (2019) online on iFILM.