MODERN LIFE (La Vie moderne) Official Selection: Palm Springs International Film Festival (2009), Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard (2008), London Film Festival (2008), Montreal International Festival of New Cinema (2008), São Paulo International Film Festival (2008) 2008 Louis Delluc prize Los Angeles Premiere Documentary France, 2008 In French with English subtitles 35 mm/Scope 2.35/Color/Dolby SRD/90 min Directed by: Raymond Depardon Cinematography by: Raymond Depardon Editing by: Simon Jacquet Original Music by: Gabriel Fauré Produced by: Claudine Nougaret Production Company: Palmeraie et Désert Co-produced by: France 2 Cinéma International sales: FILMS DISTRIBUTION 34, rue du Louvre 75001 Paris Tel: +33 1 53 10 33 99 www.filmsdistribution.com www.profilspaysans.fr Award-winning photographer and documentary filmmaker Raymond Depardon goes back to his roots in Modern Life, the last film completing his trilogy on the rural area where he was born. A series of portraits of French farmers living in remote highlands filmed over a ten-year period, Modern Life documents their struggles, economic difficulties and concern with the future inheritance of their land, but also their hopes for the future. Although their way of life may appear as traditional or antiquated, as these farmers talk about their life and values, they seem remarkably in-tune with current environmental issues. ABOUT RAYMOND DEPARDON Photographer, journalist and filmmaker Raymond Depardon started his career as assistant to photographer Gilles Foucherand and war reporter for the agency Gamma, which he co-founded in 1966. While covering the 1969 events in Prague, he directed his first short film Jan Palach, about the Czech student who self-immolated to protest the Soviet occupation. Depardon has won many awards, including two César awards for Best Short Film Documentary with Reporters (1981) and New York, N.Y. (1986) and a Best Feature Documentary César in 1995 for Délits flagrants. He has also written and directed critically acclaimed narrative features, including Untouched by the West (2002) and Captive of the Desert, starring Sandrine Bonnaire, nominated for a Palme d’Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Presented in official selection at Cannes in 2004 and screened at COL•COA in 2005, his documentary The 10th District Court is an unprecedented look at the everyday proceedings in a French court. PRESS “Greeted with a standing ovation at its Cannes premiere…Gallic docu Modern Life reps another moving installment in an ongoing series by veteran documaker Raymond Depardon…distinctive cinematic portraits, suffused with empathy and humanism, which captures a hardscrabble way of life on the decline.” (Variety) “Depardon has been photographing the hardy small-holders of French agriculture for a very long time and his admiration for these rugged characters and the wild terrain in which they live and farm shines through every image. (..) His lasting skill is in framing images that convey fully what the term salt of the earth really means.” (The Hollywood Reporter)