Bernard-Henri Levy Libya Documentary to Be Presented at Cannes

On Friday, May 25, the Festival de Cannes will present a Special Screening of Bernard-Henri Levy's Le Serment de Tobrouk (The Oath of Tobruk), who joins the Official Selection.

Made during the eight-month conflict that put an end to the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, the film traces the unfolding that unusual war, a spontaneous popular revolt that became a revolution through the determination of a collection of men and women in Libya, Paris, London, New York, and elsewhere.

Le Serment de Tobrouk (The Oath of Tobruk) illustrates how ideas and convictions can alter the course of history in the form of a political and humanitarian intervention that had heretofore seemed unthinkable. That demonstration makes all the more disturbing the spectacle of daily killing that began around the same time in Bashir El Assad's Syria and that continues to this day.

At the invitation of Bernard-Henry Lévy, and welcomed by the Festival de Cannes, four key figures of the Libyan revolution will attend the screening to dedicate their achievement in Libya to their Syrian friends.

By selecting the just-finished Le Serment de Tobrouk (The Oath of Tobruk) at the Festival, Gilles Jacob and Thierry Frémaux intend to remind us that a film can represent a bond between people inspired by a shared love of freedom.