Skip to main content
Shepherds film image; man standing in a doorway with a shepherd's crook

Shepherds

Bergers

Showcase

This event has passed

Mathyas (Félix-Antoine Duval) abruptly quits his marketing job in Montreal, abandoning his urban life for the south of France with the vague notion of becoming a shepherd -– all without knowing a single thing about this ancient profession. Ever the romantic, he is clouded by bucolic visions and dreams of writing a book in untroubled pastoral repose. What he finds is very different: the brutal life-and-death realities of sheep farming and the viciousness and cruelty of isolated men. Mathyas confronts a number of harrowing trials, including the perilous power of nature, along with the harsh economics of industrialized farming and the effects of climate change.

Adapted from a semi-autobiographical novel by Mathyas Lefebure and set in the breathtaking French Alps, Sophie Deraspe’s film feels both elemental and intimate, evoking the rhythms of land and nature. Shepherds is an epic of personal growth, posing questions about how best to live in order to feel free.

 

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Félix-Antoine Duval, Solène Rigot

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada/France

Year

2024

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+

At SFU Woodwards

19+

At Fifth Avenue

113 min
Drama Romance Women Directors
micro_scope, Avenue B Productions

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Producer

Kim McCraw, Luc Déry, Élaine Hébert, Caroline Bonmarchand, Xenia Sulyma

Screenwriter

Sophie Deraspe, Mathyas Lefebure

Cinematography

Vincent Gonneville

Editor

Stéphane Lafleur

Production Design

André-Line Beauparlant

Original Music

Philippe Brault

Sophie Deraspe headshot; Shepherds director

Sophie Deraspe

Sophie Deraspe is a director from Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec who discovered her passion for film through Visual Arts in Austria and Literature studies in Ottawa and Montreal. Starting with documentaries, she made her feature debut with Missing Victor Pellerin (2006) and later Vital Signs (2009). Her documentary A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile (2015) won awards at Sundance and Hot Docs. Her film Antigone (2019) was named Best Canadian Feature at TIFF and was selected as the Canadian entry for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.

Filmography: Missing Victor Pellerin (2006); Vital Signs (2009); Le loups (2014); A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile (2015); Antigone (2019)

Photo by Julie Gauthier

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

The Life of Chuck

Dir. Mike Flanagan
111 min

The winner of the coveted Audience Award at TIFF last year, The Life of Chuck keeps us guessing about what it's up to and where it's going... Trust us, it's a keeper.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Graduate

Dir. Mike Nichols
106 min

In The Graduate Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman, 30 playing 20 with masterly understatement) comes home from college and is surprised to be seduced by the wife of his father's business partner, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

blur: To the End

Dir. Toby L.
108 min

Now in their late 50s, Britpopsters blur (of Song 2 fame) do a celebratory lap of Great Britain culminating in their first ever Wembley Stadium show in this appealing observational doc. A companion piece to the concert film Live at Wembley Stadium.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Midnight Cowboy

Dir. John Schlesinger
113 min

Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are street hustlers on different ends of the innocence / experience spectrum who establish something more than a business partnership in the seedy world of late 60s New York City in John Schlesinger's New Hollywood classic.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Sinners

Dir. Ryan Coogler
137 min

This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Headless Woman

Dir. Lucrecia Martel
87 min

The pictures tell the story -- and you better not blink -- when Veronica (the superb Maria Onetto) hits something on the road home. But what? She is too traumatized, or panic-stricken, to go back and look, and her fears are too terrible to acknowledge.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre