IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary
France, 2012 HDcam, color, 87 min Director: Edouard Bergeon Photography: Edouard Bergeon Screenplay: Luc Golfin Editing: Luc Golfin Sound: Raphael Guerin Music: Thomas Dapello Production: Hervé Bouchaud for Sable Rouge Co-Production: Magneto Presse World Sales: Java Films Screening Copy: Java Films Involved TV Channel: France 2
The Sons of the Land
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
Les fils de la terre Edouard Bergeon
Edouard Bergeon became a filmmaker, but his father Christian followed the family tradition and became a farmer in western France. Hit by disasters and depression, Christian committed suicide in 1999, something that hundreds of French farmers choose as a way out every year. Edouard decided to spend over a year filming young French livestock farmer Sébastien Itard in the Midi-Pyrénées region. His life is no bed of roses, either, squeezed by high interest rates and unreasonably low milk prices. In the meantime, Sébastien’s demanding father also breathes down his neck, calling him soft – although he does help out when things get really tough – and Sébastien feels the added responsibility of his pregnant wife and her children from a previous marriage. Bergeon intersperses this story with memories of his own father’s demise. This creates a grippingly composed parallel narrative consisting of the current developments concerning Sébastien and the old family slides and diary excerpts from Bergeon’s family, commentated on by the filmmaker and overshadowed by the final tragedy. The beautiful shots of the French countryside stand in stark contrast to the harsh struggles of the farming community. There is some hope, however, when – having barely survived a suicide attempt of his own – Sébastien concludes, “It’s good to be alive.”
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Edouard Bergeon: Homeless, Living in Hell (2008) The Fight of the Roofless Family (2009) Haiti, the Survivors (2010) Road of the Impossible. Panama: The Suffering Paths (2010) The Mole Children from Colombia – Minor at Coal (2010) Gaza, Youth Under Supervision (2011) Coming out from Trappes (2012)