North American Premiere
Ruddy faced, slender, 18, Totone (Clément Faveau) is a country lad, a tearaway, up for a lark and ready to sow his oats. But an accident means he has to grow up fast, assuming control of his father’s small farm and taking responsibility for the care of his kid sister. He lands a job on a dairy farm, but it’s a steep curve. Mistakes come back to kick his butt. What to do? Living in the Franche-Comté region, he thinks to make his own artisanal cheese and ropes his mates in to help…
Louise Courvoisier’s debut feature earns its exclamatory title for its earthy naturalism, and its candor around sex, booze, and the petty feuds that give the lie to rose-tinted visions of country life. Yet what’s most striking and surprising about the film is its bright-eyed optimism. Totone has a low opinion of himself, but Courvoisier clearly feels differently: he’s resourceful, brave, diligent, and he takes his lessons to heart, whether he’s making love, or making cheese.
Youth Award: Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2024
Shot through with compassion for its rascally yet vulnerable protagonist…finding emotion in small details rather than big set pieces. It should charm audiences.
Lee Marshall, Screen Daily
Supported by
Community Partner
Clément Faveau, Luna Garret, Mathis Bernard, Dimitry Baudry, Maïwène Barthelemy, Armand Sancey Richard
France
2024
In French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Muriel Meynard
Screenwriter
Louise Courvoisier, Théo Abadie
Cinematography
Elio Balézeaux
Editor
Sarah Grosset
Original Music
Linda Courvoisier, Charlie Courvoisier
Louise Courvoisier
Born in 1994, Louise Courvoisier grew up in the Jura region before studying cinema at the Cinéfabrique in Lyon. Her graduation short, Mano a Mano, won the first prize at the Cinéfondation in Cannes in 2019. Holy Cow is her first feature film, a sentimental cheese epic set in the village of her childhood.
Photo by Laurent LeCrabe
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
L'Étranger
Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.
Sentimental Value
A once-revered director crashes back into his family’s lives, eager to recruit his daughter for a film role. When she declines, he finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star, sending his botched reconciliation spiraling into chaos.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
Islands
In this sly, engrossing mystery, a dissolute English tennis coach in a Canary Islands holiday resort falls under suspicion when the husband of a beautiful guest disappears after a night of heavy drinking...
The Chronology of Water
Kristen Stewart's fearless directorial debut is based on the best-selling memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch (Imogen Poots), a chronicle of her abusive childhood, traumatized adulthood, and escapes through swimming, drugs, sex, and ultimately writing.