Chady and David work on cargo ships on Lake Geneva. On the waters of the lake, the young men, who are haunted by the memories of their home countries, share secrets, memories and the same feeling of being uprooted. A strange intimacy forms between the two men. They then dare to undertake an erratic wandering, through a space and time that perhaps exist only in their dreams, but that resemble, at times, Switzerland.
The director. “In Le Pays, I wanted to talk about the nostalgia of the different characters who live together in different temporal spaces but are all connected by this same melancholy and this feeling of uprooting. The protagonists of the film share a special relationship with the Swiss landscapes, landscapes that sometimes recall those of their ancestors, and take the form of a story, between reality and fiction. Lake Geneva, a territory between France and Switzerland, becomes a place where the notion of ‘border’ is questioned”.
Lucien Monot (1994, Lausanne, Switzerland). Graduated in 2017 from the University of Art and Design in Geneva. His short films were screened and won awards at the Locarno Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and Visions du réel.
LE PAYS. (Svizzera, Francia, 2019, 43’). Director, Lucien Monot; with Leon David Salazar, Chady Abu-Nijmeh; written by Lucien Monot; cinematography, Lucien Monot, Laura Morales, Fiona Braillon; editing Raphaël Lefévre, Lucien Monot; sound, Céline Carridroit, Antoine Chapel; producer, Consuelo Frauenfelder, Jerôme Blesson, Stefan Lauper, Tarik Garidi; production, Garidi Films, La Belle Affaire Productions; with the participation of Cinèforom; supported by La Lotterie Romande e Du Pour-Cent Culturelle Migros; distribution Garidi Films.
