Claire Beffa

For ten years I pretended I wanted to get my grandfather to share his memories of the Algerian War. Today, I'm not sure I want to hear what he has to say, or whether I want to make this film at all.

A woman wakes up early because she wants to give herself a gift: time. But each spark of inspiration is cut short by household responsibilities that demand her attention, the children, the laundry, the meals. The mental load of these tasks becomes unbearable, and she reaches a breaking point.

In Saint Pierre et Miquelon, a tiny French archipelago in the North Atlantic, a group of teenagers have just graduated from high school. Urged to continue their studies, it's time to leave for mainland France and Canada. Manon, Evie, Enguerrand and their friends are about to spend their last summer on the islands together. In the turmoil that precedes this leap into the void, these budding adults, like previous generations, are confronted with this particular moment in their lives. They'll have to leave. But they are islanders, and this departure has the air of exile, of uprooting with no certainty of return. As they leave adolescence, they will be uprooted from their land, crossing a border that is both symbolic and physical. The idea is that something happens here that is more observable than elsewhere, something that concentrates and accelerates the transformations of the teenagers' personalities.