Notre-Dame-des-Landes, la reconquête

Residents reclaim the land at Notre-Dame-des-Landes – they have other visions for the future of their common territory, and their clash with the government…

The film tells this local story for its more global and fundamental dimension. And it is precisely because the stakes are profoundly rooted in a specific territory with a history and strong identity and because this is embodied by “local folk” most often with a stalwart character that its reach purports to be all the more exemplary and its echo universal….Yet, the film is not a chronicle of the conflict. Instead, it relies on this storyline to question the reasons and motives behind the clash between two agricultural models, two relationships to territory and rurality, embodied by two “generations” that would be poles apart were it not for their desire to breathe new life into this land.
What and who interests the film are these men and women trying to build a future even if their views are different, albeit antagonistic. Their actions and gestures resonate far beyond the confines of this bocage in the Loire Atlantique region: daily events take on an epic dimension. Everything here is intense and the collective management of the activities on this land to be defended adds a little more to the unusual dramatic tension.
Thibault Férié