Patrice Chagnard

Vedette is a cow. Vedette is queen. She was even once queen of the queens of the Alps. But Vedette is getting older. In order to save her the humiliation of being dethroned by young rivals, our neighbors, Elise and Nicole let us look after her for an entire summer. This is where our vision changes : our vision of the cows, of our local neighbors, in short, our vision of the world.

Caroline is young, impulsive, quick-tempered. Colette, a little older, is compassionate and disorganized. Families that ha've come from Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Eritrea, and elsewhere face both women when seeking exile in France. Each day more people arrive, with or without passports, with or without luggage, by the planeload or in tarpaulin covered trucks... How do we cope with this overflowing tide of distress and need ? The film recounts this face to face encounter, at times tense and explosive, moving and amusing, where everyone defends their position.

Alone at the wheel of their 38 tons, three men leave for a humanitarian mission to Armenia: Amine, 30 years old, who chose this form of action after having experienced difficult times, "Papy", 62 years old, former director of a transport company, prematurely retired, and Jerome, just out of a tumultuous adolescence. They have to reach Yerevan after several weeks on the road through Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia and have to face many political, climatic and geographical difficulties. In the course of the obstacles to be overcome, the strong times of friendship or conflict, the empty times of waiting or solitude, in the closed space of the cabins, the face of each one is revealed. Three destinies, three ages of life and, in common, a love of travel and the road. For each one a part of shadow, of drift, of secret.

The last part of the triptych is dedicated to the struggle of the peasant communities of northeastern Brazil; on the banks of the São Francisco River, the indigenous residents of the village of Caiçara fight to keep their Island of São Pedro, enclosed in a farm; all that remains is an abandoned chapel to which they go in procession. Tyrannized by their powerful neighbors, they talk about their lawsuits and sing about their two-century struggle, filmed in the village, during a procession to San Pedro and an expedition to the court where a delegation will file a complaint.

Lolita hates to smile. Kévin doesn't know how to sell himself. Hamid doesn't like bosses. They are twenty. They have no qualifications. They are looking for work. Over six months, the coaches of an employment consultancy firm are going to teach them the attitudes and language required to get a job in today's market. Through this apprenticeship, the film reveals the absurdity of these new rules of the game.