The Montreal World Film Festival

Under the Pines / Landes; an interview with the director in Montreal

2013, Colour, France, Belgium, World Competition (full length movies) 
Original language : french 
Subtitles language : english

Production Team

Director : François-Xavier Vives

Screenwriter : François Xavier Vives, Emmanuel Roy, Camille Fontaine

Cinematographer : Emmanuel Soyer

Editor : Isabelle Poudevigne

Cast : Marie Gillain, Jalil Lespert, Miou Miou, Swan Mirabeau, Bernard Blancan, Rosalia Cuevas, Steve Driesen

Music : Franck Lebon

Film production and Sales : Florence Borelly, Sésame Films, 22, impasse Mousset , 1, rue Charlier, 75012 Paris (France), tél.: (+33-01) 23 42 15 23, contact@sesamefilms.fr / WFE Production, Lasne (Belgique), wfe@alainberliner.com

Synopsis

The 1920s, in Landes, in southwestern France. In the middle of an immense forest a social crisis is brewing. Liéna, just 35, just widowed, has inherited her husband's his vast properties and his crazy dream to have electricity throughout his lands. Liéna wants to make this electrical dream come true, no matter the cost. But no one else seems to be interested, neither her family nor her associates, nor even the unions. So she fights, ever more stubborn and determined, only to finally understand that another dream exists, a social and emotional realm beyond the country's stalled and suffocating reality. "The main character, Liéna is… a distant relative of whom my grandfather and especially his sister -- little Suzanne in the film -- spoke to me often. I saw the film heroine in her. But with my co-writers, we ‘fictionalized’ her a lot. In life Liéna was much tougher than her fictional counterpart. We did not want a hard and rigid stepmother, just the opposite. The film is a portrait of a young woman, the widow of a large forest landowner, who gets it into her head to bring electricity to all the farms. Except that nobody wants it. But she will insist." -- François-Xavier Vives (SudOuest.fr) 
 

Director

A native of Landes in southwest France, François-Xavier Vives moved to Paris where he graduated from l'École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière. He made his directorial debut in 1996 with a short, 1860 - Sur l'extrême horizon. Among other shorts and documentaries, he made Noli me tangere (2004), shown widely in festivals, and the television series, Secrets de plantes. LANDES marks his debut in features.