La Vallée des fous

Normandy: Jean-Paul, a restaurant owner down on his luck, whose true love is sailing, decides to take part in a virtual regatta, featuring eighty days in a real boat, but high and dry in his own garden. If he wins, adieu to many of his problems,
but more than the other competitors, it’s his own personal demons he has to beat, one being his drinking problem. In a French province gone glocal, the real and the virtue blur together, but nothing can replace those family squabbles and the joy of fine dining.

COMMENTARY
Beauvois finds the suspense and competitiveness of a sports movie in a most original setting, but never looks down on his utterly mad anti-hero, desperate, yet optimistic through it all.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
La Vallée des Fous, “of the Mad”, is the other name for Port-La-Forêt, in Brittany, the mecca of sailors and navigators. All the greats started out there: Éric Tabarly, Jean Le Cam, Vincent Riou, Michel Desjoyeaux… Sailing Home, set in La Vallée, is based on my previous film, Drift Away. In that film, I couldn’t get carried away talking about the sea, sailors, or people like Bernard Moitessier, the author and navigator. This time, I wanted to make a film in the sea, albeit a pretend sea. I’ve been told that Sailing Home is Drift Away with its mask off. It’s also a film about geographical and emotional proximity. Yes, it’s true, with each film, I get closer to my own home.