Shooting gets underway today in the Dreux area on L'arbre et la forêt (“The Tree and the Forest”), the fifth feature by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau. The duo’s latest work – TV drama Born in 68 [trailer] – will be shown on Friday, October 24 on Arte in its original version: two 100-minute episodes.

The cast for L'arbre et la forêt includes seasoned actors Guy Marchand (Inside Paris [trailer]) and Françoise Fabian (5x2 [trailer]), alongside Belgium’s Yannick Renier (Private Lessons [trailer, film focus]), Sabrina Seyvecou, François Négret, Catherine Mouchet, Jacques Bonnaffé and Sandrine Dumas.
Co-written by the directors, the film centres on Frédéric (Marchand) who grows trees and has been harbouring a secret for almost 60 years. Only his wife (Fabian) and eldest son know the truth about his past.

The death of his son – with whom Frédéric had a difficult relationship – leads him to finally reveal his secret to his close relations. At the age of 20, Frédéric was deported by the Nazis and imprisoned in the Schirmeck concentration camp, in the Vosges, for homosexuality. After the war, he got married, hoping to bury this story forever.

Having first attracted attention with their debut feature Jeanne and the Perfect Guy (in official competition at Berlin in 1998), Ducastel and Martineau went on to direct Funny Felix (Panorama section at the 2000 Berlinale), The True Story of My Life in Rouen (selected at Locarno and Toronto in 2002) and Mariscos Beach (Panorama section at the 2005 Berlinale - Europa Cinemas Label Award).

Produced by Gilles Sandoz for Maïa Films and Kristina Larsen for Les Films du lendemain, L'arbre et la forêt has a budget of around €3.48m. This includes an advance on receipts from the National Film Centre (CNC), €320,000 from the Ile de France region, €175,000 from the Centre region and pre-sales from Canal + and Ciné Cinéma.

Shooting is scheduled to last eight weeks and the feature will be lensed by Matthieu Poirot-Delpech, who has worked on all Ducastel and Martineau’s films. Ad Vitam will handle domestic distribution, while Films Distribution are managing international sales.