FRANCE (LES HABITANTS) is included in the same DVD box set with JOURNAL DE FRANCE and 12 DAYS.

"I am going to meet the people of France, to listen to what they have to say. I won’t ask questions. I’ll let them take their time, gather their thoughts and talk as they will. I will invite people I have only just met into a mobile studio to talk, without constraints, with absolute freedom." —Raymond Depardon 

The vintage camping trailer making its way along France’s secondary highways looks utterly unremarkable. But once Raymond Depardon parks it—in front of stores, businesses, and town squares across the country—it become the location for dozens of remarkable conversations.

Through his documentary films and photography, Depardon is known as one of the great chroniclers of contemporary France. In FRANCE, he takes a new approach: he mics his trailer, installs cameras pointed at a small table by the window, then invites strangers to come in and have a conversation with each other. The participants range in age from their teens to their 80s: couples, friends, parents, children.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the unusual setting, many of the conversations are strikingly intimate. A young man talks to his girlfriend about how he struggles with her jealousy. A single mother working as a stripper vents all her frustrations to a near-silent friend. Two high school seniors reminisce about their school days in a scene straight out of a coming-of-age film. A mother tries to make her son understand how his destructive behavior affects the whole family and causes endless worry.

FRANCE does not set out to offer a definitive overview of French life. But certain themes do emerge, including women who find themselves in difficult relationships or chasing after exes for child support; parents worrying about their adult children and feeling left out of their lives; young men with appallingly retrograde attitudes towards women; and young couples who face challenges with trepidation but also who clearly delight in each other’s company. Immensely compelling, FRANCE plunges us into the unfiltered lives of people we would not otherwise encounter.

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Select Accolades

• Official Selection, 2015 Cannes Film Festival