Edouard Bergeon cannot say no. In the spring of 2020, in full confinement, the director of In the name of the earth (released in 2019, with Guillaume Canet, two million admissions) received a distress message from Sylvie Dahetze, who was worried about his husband Bernard, mentally fragile. The couple have just learned that their herd of 103 animals will be slaughtered after a case of bovine tuberculosis has been detected.
Himself the son of peasants, Edouard Bergeon knows that such a situation can turn tragic; his first feature film indeed relates the life of his family and the suicide of his father, a farmer.
Time to get organized and he landed in the Dahetze farm, in Ozenx-Montestrucq (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), in Béarn. On his arrival, the relief can be read on the faces. For nearly three years, Edouard Bergeon will regularly stay with them, and film, with his iPhone, the important stages of this event. He brings back a film of uneven density, but of a strong humanity, which testifies to an agricultural daily life that has evolved, administrative aberrations, threats too... And Bernard's incredible love for "[his] beasts” – it airs during the Salon de l'Agriculture, which takes place in Paris from February 25 to March 5.
"It's going to be fine..." Edouard Bergeon comforts the grandmother. However, his approach is not appreciated by everyone, in particular by the Departmental Directorate for the Protection of Populations (DDPP), which ensures the smooth running of the slaughter. The most staggering sequence of the documentary will follow: the recording of the telephone conversation between Sylvie Dahetze and her interlocutor from the DDPP, who will try everything to convince her to move the cameras away.
Stressful ordeal
Many viewers will also discover the annual prophylaxis of the herd, during which a veterinarian carries out a battery of tests on the cattle to detect possible diseases. A stressful ordeal, at the end of which, if all goes well, the veterinarian issues "a one-year renewable CDD", says the breeder.
The day of departure for the slaughterhouse, the Dahetze family cracks, and Edouard Bergeon films the tears. A neighboring breeder, Jean-Pierre Duplaa, sympathizes sincerely. The little calves seem touched by grace, now alone in the light of the vast stable. The filmmaker also asks questions: at what price is the meat sold? Why is it for consumption? What are the breeders going to do with the compensation premium paid by the state?
Among the speakers, the deputy (La République en Marche) of Villeneuve-sur-Lot (Lot-et-Garonne), from 2017 to 2022, Olivier Damaisin, former entrepreneur and author of a report on identification and support struggling farmers and suicide prevention; and the young Minister of Agriculture (from 2020 to 2022) Julien Denormandie, rather distraught when the report was given to him in December 2020.
At the time, Sylvie Dahetze ran a press house in mass distribution. This filmed event will make it evolve. Her husband will hold on, despite the debts and the injustices; he will rebuild a smaller herd and work again with a smile seven days a week, seventy hours a week for 600 euros a month. But they are no longer "his beasts".
