On paper, France is an egalitarian society. The republican ideals of liberté, égalité and fraternité are carved into public buildings across the country. And formal equality is carved into French laws in other ways, including a policy that makes it illegal to collect information on residents’ race, ethnicity, or religion.

That “colorblindness” has made it difficult for people of color to prove to the state that systemic racism and police brutality exist in a supposedly equal country.

In our ongoing series highlighting documentaries by students here at UVA, grad student Bremen Donovan follows a group of community activists and lawyers who are fighting to prove discrimination exists in court in order to make France’s official equality a reality.