Le Village au cimetière

“For about ten years now, I have been photographing the inhabitants of Ile-Grande in their cemetery on All Saints’ Day (…) Filming all the villagers in the cemetery gradually imposed itself as the central theme of this film. Filming all the villagers who had agreed to pose for a camera, the new eyewitness of our times, a small portable cemetery of our modern age. A village which “fills” its cemetery every All Saints’ Day, with all its voices, all its faces, mostly womens’, names cited as they stroll down the alleyways, stories exchanged here and there by all, in French and in Breton, often mixing humour and solemnity. It is well-known that death and its representation occupy an important place in Brittany. Without attempting any demonstration, this film endeavours to capture and convey through these everyday gestures and words, the particular implications which death holds for this culture. Finding life in death, in some way…” (Thierry Compain)