THE LONE VALLEY
2023 · 5m · France
Directed by Robin Pogorzelski
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
A filmmaker returns to the French Alps to portrait a solitary shepherd whose life revolves around his flock and the rhythms of high altitude.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Shepherd portrait born of a chance meeting — gorgeously shot French-Alps doc territory, the kind of thing that's beautiful and that I will forget by Tuesday.
Pogorzelski returning to a hiking encounter with a single shepherd is the Varda-Geyrhalter approach to portraiture — patient, unguarded, alpine. Five minutes is brief for the form but the chance-encounter origin gives it rare intimacy.
Shot on RED KOMODO with Sigma Art 18-35 f/1.8 by Robin Pogorzelski (who also edited and colored) — that single-author technical control plus the chance-encounter origin gives it a documentarian's intimacy at 5:22. Clean craft signal.