2004 / Original language: French / Color / 1.66 / Stereo

1920s: Albert Londres, crack investigative reporter for a high-circulation Paris daily, arrives in the French Guyana to do a story on the Cayenne penal colony. Firstly leaded by the military authorities, he discovers the detention conditions: strict but fair compared to the crimes the prisoners have committed. Yet his intuition tells him something goes wrong… He begins to wander, looking for the truth.

He meets Claudia, the beautiful wife of a convicted anarchist Camille Desfeuilles, who has come to live in Cayenne to be near from her husband and help him escape. With their help, he digs out the horrific detention conditions and declares war on this cruel and inhuman system.

His crusade puts him in danger as well as Camille and Claudia, with whom he's falling in love. By Camille's request, he convinces Claudia to follow him in Paris where they will fight with pen and words to have Cayenne closed down and her husband freed. But a tragedy is taking place back in Guyana where Desfeuilles has been sentenced to death on false pretenses. Now he has only chance to save his skin: escape...

Cayenne is based on Londres’ life. The Albert Londres prize is still awarded today to the best newspaper foreign correspondent and, since 1985, the best TV foreign correspondent.