TRENT. A life suspended, out of time and in an inaccessible world, dealing with loneliness and an invisible adversary: the story of Félix, a melancholy and reserved young shepherd, amazed and moved the international jury of the 72nd Trento Film Festival, who therefore awarded the film Un pasteur by Louis Hanquet (France/2024/71′) the Golden Gentian Best Film – “City of Trento” Grand Prix.
“The film offers a mesmerizing portrait of a young man and his existential choice, capable of leaving us all in awe. The director captures different moments in Felix’s life, surrounded by his animals, be they dogs or sheep, which he knows how to take care of in a sensitive and attentive manner. In the overall vision it offers us, Un pasteur calls us to respect and humility in the face of a community made up of animals, men and nature that coexist in harmony”: this is the motivation of the Jury.
Félix lives alone and works with his father to raise the family flock: from autumn to spring he takes care of his animals, feeds them and guards them in the dense holm oak forests of the French pre-Alps. In the summer, he leaves his father and travels more than two hundred kilometers on foot to lead the herd to mountain pastures, up to the Ubaye valley, in the Alpes de Haute Provence. There, for long months, far from everything and everyone, he lives in a world made of rocks, where an invisible being wanders: the wolf.
“The real mountain, ancient and at the same time very current, won, the ‘sour’ mountain, made of harshness and isolation”, commented the president of the Trento Film Festival Mauro Leveghi. The Golden Gentian Best film about mountaineering, people and mountain life – Cai Award goes to the film “Le fils du chasseur” by Swiss director Juliette Riccaboni, with a special mention for Marmolada – Madre Roccia; the Golden Gentian Best exploration or adventure film – “City of Bolzano” Award to “The Great White Whale” by Michael Dillon; the Silver Gentians Best technical-artistic contribution to the animated short “Body of a Line” by Henna Taylor and Best short film to “Postcards from the Verge” by Natalia Koniarz, with a special mention to “Silent Panorama” by Nicolas Piret. Jury Prize to “Seventeen” by the Swiss director Thomas Horat.
