Wednesday 10 February
10:00am, 2:00pm, 5:00pm, 7:30pm
Directed by Edward Bergeon
France/Subtitles
Drama
103 mins
Pierre returns from Wyoming to the Mayenne district of France in the late 1970s to marry his girlfriend and buys the family farm from his cruel and unforgiving father. The couple have 2 children and the farm does well for many years until the business is placed under enormous pressure deeply affecting Pierre and family.
The film offers a crash course in how corporation-dictated agricultural practices have turned farmers into over-worked near-slaves prey to overwhelming debt and clinical depression. Few could have predicted that an intimate rural drama about succession and resilience would become one of the most popular French films of the past year.
REVIEWS
The contrast between the sheer beauty of the land and the harsh realities of big business is very skillfully controlled. – Leigh Paatch, Sun Herald
It’s an important film about the real issues facing farmers today, in France, in Australia, everywhere. The themes it explores are as urgent and as pressing in Australia as they are there. – Stephen Romei, Weekend Australian
A solemn true story of agricultural strife. – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter