Foudre

Summer of 1900, in a valley of southern Switzerland. Elisabeth, 17 years old, is about to take her vows, when the sudden death of her sister forces her to leave the convent and return to the family farm, which she had left 5 years before. But Elisabeth is no longer a child: oppressed by the rigid rules of the village and obsessed by the mysteries surrounding her sister’s death, she will fight for the right to be her own master.

COMMENTARY In the summer of 1900, from the peace of the convent in which she has been serving her novitiate for five years, seventeen-year-old Elisabeth has been catapulted back home shortly before taking her vows, to work the fields, after the sudden death of her older sister Innocente. But the circumstances of the death are mysterious, the family is silent, and only three of her childhood friends seem to share Elisabeth’s thirst for knowledge and freedom. Set in the sunny scenario of a Swiss valley, this is the story of a progressive assertion of independence, will and desire, in which the repressive gloom of the environment and beliefs is progressively chipped away by the vital energy of the four friends, who enjoy a growing complicity and fall progressively in love with each other and their respective bodies.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT I discovered a series of notebooks belonging to my great-grandmother in which every day she engaged with the Lord. Had she ever been as intimate with anyone as she had been with God? In my imagination I saw her as a Mystic. I thought of all that had been taken away from women, especially concerning the possibility of expressing themselves. As I progressed in my research, I realized that I would not find what I was looking for in the history books. Thanks to the encounters I had with old-timers, I understood that I needed to pursue the feelings, the emotions, living History. I wanted to rewrite great History, the history that had forgotten to document the lives of women, the history of my great-grandmother, to fill in the gaps.