Ingrid Betancourt has been kept locked up by the Columbian Armed Revolutionary Forces, or FARC, since February 23, 2002. For twenty months now, her family and friends have been living without someone they love. Last May, we began filming a portrait of this former candidate to the Columbian presidency, who is half-French, half-Columbian, and who was classed as a troublemaker in Bogotà´s political circles. Fighting against a former President of the Republic, Ernesto Samper, who was accused of funding his electoral campaign using money from the Cali Cartel drug traffickers, and protesting firstly against the corruption of her fellow parliamentary colleagues and then against that of the Senate as well as spearheading a condom distribution campaign (“to protect Columbia from corruption”), this is our portrait of Ingrid Betancourt. We also examine the links between Ingrid and France and the role of “political mentor”” played by the current French Foreign Affairs minister, Dominique de Villepin.
However, this film is also written as a long letter to Ingrid. A letter sent by each of her family members using our camera. We went first to San Domingo and then to Columbia itself to record personal messages and we then tried to find Ingrid, and have these ´video letters´ broadcast. This documentary retraces the steps in our search. We were in contact with her captors many times, and we even obtained permission to go and see her at a time when our French citizenship was seen as an asset by the FARC. Unfortunately, ´the incredible Brazilian affair´ which occurred in July 2003, sounded the death knoll for our search. We reveal in this documentary how the Betancourt family, and then France itself, to whom the family turned for help, were manipulated by the Columbian administration. We also see how France did indeed have two direct contacts with the kidnappers…