Strong is the land
It is the story of an almost ordinary year , spent in the heart of rural community, in Bourgogne, where live and mingle families of farmers, the village's wanderers and the department's politicians, expressing hopes, disillusions, longings and stakes, while within a generation's time, the changes dictated by the outside world are so profound and disturbing that all the landmarks, the gestures, the familial and social behaviours have to be looked over again and thought anew.
Type (Documentaire / Documentaire fiction / Série documentaire)DocumentaryGenre en anglaisSociety & Economy Written and directed byAndrew Orr, Pierre BourgeoisIn coproduction with Novaprod-owlSupported by CNC, ProcirepBroadcasted by La Sept ARTEDistributed by ADAV, Artline FilmsYear1999Duration90min
A year of thorough investigation, among the inhabitants of a rural community, among these professional wanderers who live in it and roam it – the postman, the doctor or the veterinary, the leading citizen or the elected one- records a changing time, a transition period between the immutable traditions of the past and the paradoxes of a perpetually moving present, a world that looks for new bases in order to build a new identity for itself.
Far away from the cities that are so much covered by the medias, the countryside lives on a daily basis its inescapable alteration, dictated by the rules of an European Union its inhabitants hardly understand, or by the ambitions of ecology, still in its early stages. The love of the soil induces hopes, but does not prevent behaviours from drifting or absurd situations to take place. And yet it is there that the future of the countries is at stake…
Press coverage
The perspective of an outsider on an inevitable transformation that could lead to a land without farmers.
Le Monde
Andrew Orr's documentary is a true foray into the world of farming. A rare blend of tenderness and accuracy on television.
Le Figaro
The magnificent images by Pierre Bourgeois and the rare interventions of Andrew Orr, an Irishman settled here, capture the slow chronicle of this land that one is leaving. The people have time to tell their stories, while the journalist possesses the wisdom to remain silent.
Libération
Andrew Orr recounts with a loving slowness the seasons and days of a region he wishes to claim as his own, Puisaye. He embodies a universal inquiry into this intimate civil war that unfolds within each person, between the past that clings to one’s soles, like the clay of this land of potters, and the disorienting present that reflects the future.
Télérama
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