Vincent Barré

“It begins with an exhibition at the French Institute in Munich. We had decided to create an installation together [with Vincent Barré] in the greenhouse of the Seyssel d’Aix palace: a tribute to Paul Cézanne and his final model, the gardener Vallier….We spoke about the project with one of Vincent’s childhood friends, Christine Toffin, who reminded us that she was related to the painter. Her aunt, the painter’s granddaughter, still lived at Bourron-Marlotte. We decided to go and film Aline Cézanne in her retirement home at Bourron-Marlotte….It was during the sound editing that we thought of making a film using the images we had shot for the sound. The framing is minimal – it’s fine as it is, but it was not set up with a film in mind. A year later, we went back to see Aline. Her speech had become more confused and we went off with her to the village to find the houses of her childhood.”

Following the steps of an English botanist, in the landscapes of the Normandy coast, people and cameras look at flowers. This is an essay on attention and friendship, a cinematic herbarium.

Portrait of the film-maker and visual artist Pierre Creton, who shoots films in the country of Caux, in Normandy, while taking on his agricultural tasks as a worker and farmer.

The journey of a young man as he begins an apprenticeship in the French countryside to train as a gardener. There he encounters a trio of men who will prove decisive in both his nascent career as a horticulturist and in unleashing his sexuality.

African immigrants start working on a farm in Normandy and hope to open their own restaurant someday.

“It was on Foula, the furthest island from the main island [Shetland Isles], that we ran into Jovan. Or rather he ran into us, coming off the ferry late in the day. The mist was thick and we looked worn-out. He took us under his wing and offered to show us around the island the following day. There is a long sequence shot of the passing scenery, taken from inside his car. Driving along the only road, Jovan pointed out to Vincent the island’s disarray: abandoned cars and tractors, heaps of rusting scrap metal. Then on another island, Papa Stour, with a view of Foula, we filmed what was to become the first part of the film.”

“When FACIM (Foundation for international cultural activities in mountain regions) called me to propose making a film about Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt, I didn’t know him as a writer, only a little as a translator. So I immediately read his books, Le Recours and Le Poing dans la bouche, published by Verdier, which moved me deeply….I didn’t write a script. The commission was to film Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt in the places he arrived at in France during the war, in Megève, and his relationship to the region, which is very present in his books. I filmed him from day to day over four days. On returning to the places of his childhood exile, he met the families who had helped him survive, people his own age who were children at the time, whose memories were reconstituted together.”

A film about belonging, gay rural life, physical labor & elderly bodies. The arrival of Toto the marcassin at Madeleine's house, Vincent's trip to India and his troubles with the monkeys, or Joseph's dreams provoked by the continuous pressure machine, are three stories that Pierre will share and that in one way or another summon up our relationship with the animal, with this other neighbor