"It's time".
These are the last words that the condemned hear in the death chamber at Huntsville. They are also the signal for the first of three injections. Frances Newton was found guilty of shooting dead her husband and two children for the life insurance money and was sentenced to death for her crime. Now, 18 years later, that sentence is to be carried out. This film does not focus on the course of a judicial murder; it cannot clarify the guilt, or indeed the innocence that Frances still maintains. What it does is present the truly appalling part of all this: its banality. Every two weeks on average the state execution team convenes here. Here we have the violent and simultaneously sterile apparatus of the "most humane" of all forms of execution. It will be the moment of truth for Frances. The witnesses arrive to take their places in the viewing room. The final decisions to refuse a stay of execution are received from the last court of appeal. Mrs. Newton waived her right to her last meal, and opted not to say any "last words". To her family in the witness room however she soundlessly mouthed the words: "I love you".


Germany, 2006

Director : Thomas Giefer, Rena Giefer
Journalist : Konrad Ege
Camera : Thomas Giefer
Sound : Rena Giefer
Editing : Frenzie Neumann
Music : Michael Kadelbach

Production : Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Appellhofplatz 1,
50600 Köln, Germany
Tél : +49 22 1220 2765
Fax : +49 22 1220 8484
Email : redaktion@wdr.de

Sales : German United Distributors,
Breite Strasse 48-50,
50667 Cologne, Germany
Tél : +49 22 1920 6933
Fax : +49 22 1920 6969
Email : sales@germanunited.com

Format: Betacam Digital. Colour
Running time: 48 min
Year of production: 2006


Reportage and Current Affairs