In the Artois countryside of northern France, Gabin, the youngest of the Jourdel family, seems destined to take over his father’s butcher’s shop. But his dreams lie elsewhere: training a contest cow, breeding dogs and saving his mother’s struggling farm. Filmed over a decade, from the age of eight to 18, Maxence Voiseux’s tender documentary follows a boy torn between family loyalty and the need to find his own way in the world.
In the Artois, a corner of northern France crossed by motorways and dotted with slag heaps and abandoned factories, Gabin is the youngest of the Jourdel family. His father, Dominique, a butcher who works all hours, has quietly decided that Gabin will one day take over the shop. Gabin is not so sure. He would rather work with animals, but living ones: he dreams of training a contest cow, of becoming a dog breeder, and of saving the farm his mother, Patricia, runs as it slides towards financial ruin. Between breakfasts with his father, lessons with his tutor and long days among the cattle, he slowly begins to imagine a life of his own.
Filmed over ten years, from the age of eight to 18, Maxence Voiseux’s documentary watches Gabin grow up without hurry or fanfare, through the rituals of family life and the conversations that finally bring unspoken things into the open. As his exhausted father reaches breaking point and his mother turns to the family’s past for answers, Gabin must find a path that honours where he comes from without being bound by it. The result is a moving, gently funny portrait of a boy coming of age in a region where leaving can feel like betrayal and staying comes at a cost.
Filmed over ten years, from the age of eight to 18, Maxence Voiseux’s documentary watches Gabin grow up without hurry or fanfare, through the rituals of family life and the conversations that finally bring unspoken things into the open. As his exhausted father reaches breaking point and his mother turns to the family’s past for answers, Gabin must find a path that honours where he comes from without being bound by it. The result is a moving, gently funny portrait of a boy coming of age in a region where leaving can feel like betrayal and staying comes at a cost.
