Traces

The Italian filmmaker Mario RUSPOLI shot "Les inconnus de la terre", or the unknown of the earth, produced by Argos film, in Lozere in 1961, . This film about the farmers of this French department, and beyond, about the disinherited, about the isolated man, as Ruspoli himself has it, is a landmark in the history of documentary film. 50 years later, Jean-Christophe Monferran, director, Françoise-Eugénie Petit and Martin de la Soudière, as researchers who are familiar with these fields of investigation, returned to the very places of the film and tried to find the so-called "actors" of the time. How do they remember this film? What personal memories, what parts of their life course does it bring out? How did they feel connected to this experience?
The adults tell of their childhood on the farm, their respective life course and tell movingly about Pierre Gazo, an itinerant agricultural teacher, and Doctor Tosquelles, the director of the psychiatric hospital of Saint Alban in Lozère.
An interview with Michel Brault, Mario Ruspoli's chief operator, provides information on the making and shooting of the film.
Images of the countryside and agricultural work in Lozere alternate with conversations and numerous extracts from Mario Ruspoli's film.