A century of French farmers fighting to survive their own extinction — tractors, tears, and the death of the soil.
In barely a century, French peasants have seen their world profoundly turned upside down. While they once made up the vast majority of the country, today they are only a tiny minority and are faced with an immense challenge: to continue to feed France. From the figure of the simple tenant farmer described by Emile Guillaumin at the beginning of the 20th century to the heavy toll paid by peasants during the Great War, from the beginnings of mechanization in the inter-war period to the ambivalent figure of the peasant under the Occupation, From the unbridled race to industrialization in post-war France to the realization that it is now necessary to rethink the agricultural model and invent the agriculture of tomorrow, the film looks back at the long march of French peasants.
Direction
Poirier and Beziat let the land speak louder than narration.
Cinematography
Glorious, mournful shots of disappearing France.
Editing
Century-spanning montage that bruises without preaching.
Director
Fabien Beziat
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film deliberately reclaims 'paysan' over 'agriculteur,' a linguistic reclamation of dignity after decades of urban condescension.
Director Agnès Poirier spent three years in archives because living farmers refused to be interviewed — too exhausted, too betrayed, or simply gone.
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