Chronique paysanne en Gruyère (1991)

This chronicle was filmed in the Gruyère region for a year, from July 1989 to July 1990. Conrad and Louise Bapst are mountain "small farmers" living in self-sufficiency and sharing the same estate with their three sons, two of whom are married and have a family of three and four children. We have followed chronologically with the Bapsts a year of work and celebrations. They live in La Roche; in the summer, part of the family goes up to the mountain pastures. Following the growth of the grass, they move six times in three months with their cows, in three chalets. They make Gruyère by hand, as it has been produced for three hundred years. On the lower farm there is a part of the family who makes the hay and the garden. Autumn is the "desalpe" followed by the big party: the Bénichon. The sale of cheeses makes it possible to pay for the rented mountain pastures and to leave a very small profit. There are votes, for or against the army, and a meeting of mountain farmers worried about the approach of Europe in 1993.