son of farmers, the director filmed on his parents’ farm

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A graduate of Fémis in 2011, Hubert Charuel first made short films before unveiling his first long format, Little Peasantlanded in theaters on August 30, 2017. Accompanied by Swann Arlaud, Sara Giraudeau, Isabelle Candelier and Bouli Lanners, he delivered a sensitive and disturbing work. A film inspired by his childhood, the son of dairy farmers, particularly marked by the mad cow crisis in the 1990s.

Little farmer or the paranoia of a young breeder

Little Peasant takes us into Pierre’s daily life. In his thirties, the boy spends most of his time taking care of his animals on the recently taken over family farm. For company, he has his veterinarian sister, Pascale, who comes to see him very regularly. Very close to his herd, Pierre will, one day, see one of his cows worrying him. Quickly, he is convinced that the animal is suffering from FHD, a particularly dangerous virus which threatens his other animals. Problem, his sister doesn’t believe it… Against his advice, the farmer will do the irreparable by killing his cow. All of a sudden, paranoia will mix with her daily anxieties when Pascale, in confidence, will hesitate to reveal her terrible secret to the health authorities.

Little farmer : Where is director Hubert Charuel’s parents’ farm located?

Born in 1985, Hubert Charuel, son of farmers, experienced the dairy crisis and the realities of the agricultural world from the inside. To immerse the spectators in it, the filmmaker chose to do things on a grand scale, situating the action of his film in his parents’ real farm in Droyes, about twenty kilometers from Saint-Dizier. A place that is dear to him, as he explained in the press kit for his feature film: “When we started writing, I didn’t think about it because the farm was still in operation. But after my father retired, my mother left with her animals to another farm. From the moment we had this empty farm, I said to myself: ‘It’s the setting I know best.’ I brought in Sébastien Goepfert, my operational manager, and we agreed: this old farm, which my parents renovated themselves, has a character. Well, then, Sébastien frowned a little when he saw how cramped the milking parlor was…!”