30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

The methods of intensive agriculture, increasingly automated and industrialised, also threaten forestry and forest preservation. Heavy mechanisation, monocultures, fertilisers and pesticides, are the tools of an accelerated model that takes little account of natural rhythms. Arriving ten years ago on the Millevaches plateau in the Limousin region, a 70% wooded area, the director immediately realised that the conifer monocultures had very little that was natural. Avoiding the stereotypes with which naturalist documentarians usually tell about the great forests, Drouet went in search of the testimonies of those who live and work there. Filming at the height of man, the personages are described in their environment, without judgment, showing the logic of each: of those who collaborate with the forest and of those who oppose it. A journey into industrial silviculture and its alternatives. Because today's choices determine the landscape of tomorrow.

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  François-Xavier Drouet

  Born in 1980, François-Xavier Drouet graduated with a degree in political science and anthropology. He holds a Masters in documentary directing from Lussas. He is a director, screenwriter and director of photography and has made several documentaries including Acouphènes (2005) and La Chasse au Snark (2013). He lives on the Millevaches plateau, where he shot part of Le temps de forêts.