A YEAR ON A GENTLE SLOPE

by Stéphane Manchematin & Serge Steyer
Expected 2026 – 90 minutes – France

Besides his appearance as a decadent old cowboy, Pierre has a particularity: every day, for almost sixty years, he has written novels. At least two hundred were published. When he is not writing, he makes his wood for the winter, digs his well deeper – the level of the water table drops from year to year –, makes repairs in his house or his cabins and observes, from his balcony , the world as it is. At night, he draws and paints, in a workshop that he built with his own hands.
Irma enjoys life. She sings when she is happy, sings when she is sad. She takes care of her cats, makes jewelry and maintains ties with the couple's few acquaintances. She drives the car because “Pelot” as she calls him with tenderness and a touch of derision, does not have a license. She is his first reader, even if she deplores the systematic darkness of his novels. “All these deaths by the thousands... it’s not funny!” »
Pierre and Irma live in Saint-Maurice sur Moselle, in the heart of the Hautes-Vosges. This is where they were born, almost eighty years ago. Where they met, in kindergarten. There, later, they founded a home and a family. There they put down roots, refusing the sirens of a more worldly life in Paris.
Between them there has been a long-standing complicity and a continual quarrel full of humor, a way of being able to reproach each other lightly. They spend most of their time together at home. At nightfall, they watch films, westerns or classics of American cinema. They don't go out much. People pass by the house, rather taciturn, rather angry, rather non-conformist. We prepare a good meal, we laugh, we deplore human madness.
In 2013, Pierre and Irma experienced a tragedy: the loss of their only son. A darling child whose room has not moved since the tragedy. They often speak of him, with infinite tenderness and impenetrable regret. Can writing be a cure for all ills?

A Les Films de la pluie production