Raphaëlle Agogué

Soldiers returning from Afghanistan are brought to a luxury hotel for rehabilitation, but three of them hold a dark secret they are pressured to bury.

The winner of the prestigious New Director competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Marine Francen’s debut is a sensual, visually stunning historical romance. In 1851, France’s autocratic President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte has ordered the arrest of all the men of a remote mountain farming village following a Republican uprising. The women spend years in total isolation, forced to tend the crops themselves. Some women have lost their husbands; others, like the shy but inwardly strong Violette, suddenly have no chance of experiencing physical love or motherhood. The women take an oath: if a man comes, they will share him as a lover. When a mysterious and handsome stranger arrives, he ignites passions and jealousies that threaten to destroy the tight-knit community. In the vein of THE BEGUILED and THE GUARDIANS, Marine Francen strikingly beautiful first feature is a part of a new wave of female-focused historical drama.