Broye: a film on gay love in the middle of the tobacco fields

Did the 400 inhabitants of Ménières, a small agricultural village of the Friborg Broye, are they aware of the telegenic potential of their region? By coming to flatter the rustic aesthetic of tobacco culture this week, the young Romande directors Margaux Error and Manon Stutz raise all doubts. Their work base: the queer novel “One summer to M.”, published in 2023 under the pen of Robin Corminboeuf.

Honored with a Gay novel Prize The same year, the autofictional book of the writer Broyard recounts the homosexual awakening of a teenager trapped in a stifling campaign, in the middle of tobacco plantations. His only escape: meeting forums, in the infancy of social networks in the 2000s. While he reluctantly participated in the harvest in the family farm, the young man falls under the spell of a Polish seasonal. A liberating meeting.

With 25 people, the filming team activated all week between Ménières and Granges-Marnand to transform this book into a fifteen-minute short film. Beyond the professionals, a whole region is mobilizing: the large room has turned a governing, farmers have opened the doors of their premises (and their wardrobe) to provide decorations and costumes, and the local theater troupe brings its small share of extras. “It is extremely rare for the people of the village to support us as much. Without them, it was not the same film, ”thanks producer Elisa Garbar, from the house Louise Productions in Lausanne.

Tractor and Boguet borrowed from the family

Robin Corminboeuf welcomes us on the Ménières farm where he grew up, surrounded by his parents, Martine and Jean-Michel. The shooting started the day before, and the excitement reigns. “We will come to shoot a scene here, in the kitchen!” Jean-Michel, now retired, has cultivated tobacco all his life. Invested with a consultant mission, he must ensure that the film is closest to the harvest conditions which prevailed in 2005. “Today, we no longer suspend the leaves individually, but the whole plants. It is more effective, but less poetic from a cinematographic point of view. ”

It is also the glory time of the old tractor of the Corminboeuf family. “Yesterday, the directors found that a scene lacked dynamism. So I climbed on the machine to get it back in the background. ” His grandson’s bugog is also entitled to a scene. Active on all fronts, Jean-Michel also won a small role in the film alongside a childhood friend, adding a layer of authenticity to history. The father – his own character – is embodied by a professional actor (François Nadin). Martine is only looking forward to: “See what head they found for my husband!”

Their 34 -year -old son has long remained indifferent, even hostile to the smoking environment in which he grew up. As if these giant plants aspired all the air available, leaving it asphyxiated. “When I was a teenager, I preferred to cloister myself in the kitchen to prepare the meals of the workers than to go help with the harvest.” Twenty years later, he is at peace with the tobacco fields, erected in stars of his book, then of this short film. Pride can be guessed in the modest gaze of his parents.

“One of the forces of the film is to interest the city dwellers on the left in agriculture that they ignore a lot, while making discover an extraordinary love story to the country, all without pathos or caricature”, underlines the writer. A winning combination: “You might think that a LGBT thematic Risk of being badly welcomed in a rural environment, but that was absolutely not the case! The town of Ménières was very cooperative. ”

“Spotlight” on local culture

This Tuesday afternoon, heat crushes the Broyarde countryside. Robin Corminboeuf takes us to meet his Petit-Cousin Gaël, the farmer who agreed to transform one of his hangars into a life-size decor for filming. Interrupted in the middle of a harvest, he descends from a big leap from his tractor. “If the cameras impress me?” No more than that, as I have already played in an ad for Hugo Reitzel! ”

Tabacultor readjusts his sunglasses, smile on his lips. “Three days of shooting for a thirty second clip,” he recalls. So for a fifteen -minute film, I admit that I was a little afraid of the time it was going to take! ” But the “spotlight” on the tobacco industry is well worth it. “Even our colleagues farmers do not know how we work!” It is a culture that fascinates more than beets or corn. The walkers sometimes stop to take a picture of us. ”

Direction the pharmacy of Granges-Marnand. His boss, Christian Bueche, comedian from the beavers’ troop (Cheyres), responded to the appeal to extras, swapping his white blouse against salis workers’ clothes by the earth. He is not intimidated by the cameras either. And for good reason, this village star has been traveling the TV sets in France for ten years. His main weapon: a Passage to the “Kings of Shopping” on M6 in 2015.

The 59 -year -old pharmacist comes out of his delivery, the tanned complexion. Almost too much for the film! “I was forbidden a swimming pool until the end of the shooting,” he laughs. The big difference between theater and cinema? “On the boards, we have the immediate reaction of the public. On a tray, hard to know if we have hit it just or not! You have to wait for months to find out if the result appeals to people. ”

He shot very early this morning. “The makeup artist spurts us with false perspiration based on petroleum jelly and glycerin to simulate an effort in the middle of a cagnard, when dawn had just gotten up.” As a first -handed infirmier, Christian Bueche has treated numerous Bobos of Polish and French seasonal workers who came to harvest tobacco Broyard. “They often switch their hands.” The other flagship solicitation for tobacco workers: “The next day pill”, laughs the pharmacist.

Polish accent course

In the middle of the village, the hangar of Gaël Corminboeuf is a buzzing hive. Closed shutters and walking cameras further increase the temperature by a few degrees. The makeup artist does not need to add a lot to shine the front of the workers who handle the heavy tobacco leaves. In the main role, the young Jurassian Marinel actor Mittempergher. “Like me, he grew up in the countryside, whispers Robin Corminboeuf. He knows what life looks like in a small village. ”

The Eastern European seasonal worker is interpreted by the French actor Hugo Hamel (trained in The Manufacture de Lausanne), whose pectorals shine under the effect of humidity. To give the reply with a Slavic phonetics, he benefited from some “accent courses” on the part of Polish students to whom he gave lessons from French, then refined his pronunciation with an application. Margaux Fazio and Manon Stutz have orchestrate all these little people from their unfolding chair.

To transpose the 92 pages of the novel into a fifteen -minute film, “we had to make choices,” said the producer, Elisa Garbar. “It is sometimes frustrating for the authors, but you always have to think about what we see on the screen!” Robin Corminboeuf, whose pen has often been described as “cinematographic”, accepted this new grammar. “I am less bare in the book than in the film,” he smiles. It’s not worse. “

Budget of the short film, which should be released in 2026: 150,000 francs, funded by the Romande Foundation for the cinema (Cinéforom) and by a participatory kitty which made it possible to find more than a tenth of the funds. The Fazio-Stutz pair won the Nikon Film Festival with «Tears Come from Above» In 2023. “One summer to Mr.” could well take off their career. “In this environment, everything can go very quickly,” blows their producer, who already dreams of making Ménières shine in Locarno, Venice and Berlin.

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