Roubaix used to be a booming city, home to a flourishing textile industry. Its stately architecture is a reminder of its affluent past. But the town today is eroded by poverty, unemployment and crime. It has become a society that offers little opportunity to its inhabitants - except for the ideal conditions to commit a cynical murder.
Roubaix's small police force is kept busy by armed robberies, domestic violence, car theft, missing teenagers and arson. These are usually considered to be all in a day's work by Superintendent Haroune and his team, but while making this fly-on-the-wall documentary, the film-makers capture the Roubaix police confronted with the most serious crime of all.
A Small Town Murder is a unique cop's-eye view of a murder case. What makes it so compelling is its setting of the genial Roubaix police (who are much more Heartbeat than CSI) against the shocking murder - a crime that ends with the two perpetrators getting 33 years between them.
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