Festivals - Gerardmer 2021: The Swarm will be screened in official competition

By Mulder, 21 january 2021

"What interested me about this story was that it was a film of today, a film that, through its fantastic dimension, spoke directly about us, about the great imbalance that affects the world and agriculture in particular. (...) It all begins when Virginie understands that you have to give her locusts something extra. It's not pesticides, it's not food, it's a part of herself. It's by completely abandoning herself to her production that she explodes her output.... This is more of a tension film than a genre film. To define it more precisely, I would say that it is an agricultural thriller that ends like a catstrophic film" - Just Philippot

The Swarm is a French fantasy drama directed by Just Philippot. It was selected at the Critics' Week of the Cannes Film Festival 2020 (cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic).

Born in 1982 in the Paris region, Just Philippot graduated in 2007 with a Master's degree in Cinema at the Faculty of Paris VIII. He then made four short films, including Ses Souffles (2015) and Acide (2018), both shortlisted for the César awards. He co-wrote and co-directed with his brother a medium-length documentary film, Gildas avoir quelque chose à nous dire, broadcast on Arte in 2017. He regularly leads workshops on filmmaking in schools and associations. La Nuée is his first feature film.

Synopsis :
Virginia finds it difficult to reconcile her life as a farmer with that of a single mother. To save her farm from bankruptcy, she throws herself headlong into the edible grasshopper business. But little by little, her children don't recognize her anymore: Virginie seems to develop a strange obsessive bond with her grasshoppers...

The Swarm
Directed by Just Philippot
Produced by Thierry Lounas, Manuel Chiche
Written by Jérôme Genevray, Franck Victor
Starring Suliane Brahim, Sofian Khammes, Marie Narbonne, Raphaël Romand, Victor Bonnel, Vincent Deniard
Music by Vincent Cahay
Cinematography: Romain Carcanade
Edited by Pierre Deschamps
Production companies : Capricci Production, The Jokers, Arte France Cinéma
Distributed by The Jokers / Capricci (France)
Release date: unknown
Running time: 101 minutes

(Source : press release)