Director: Philippe Rostan
Authors: Philippe Rostan, Brigitte Peskine
Cinematographer: Wilfrid Sempé, Charles Rostan
Editing: Nguyen Minh-Tam
Sound: Xavier Piroëlle
Sound Mix: Bruno Tarrière
Production:
Filmover Production
11-17 rue de la Chine
75020 Paris
Contact:
Véronique Encrenaz
Tel: 0033 3.61.51.77.64
Philippe Rostan
GSM: 06.08.82.19.94
Year: 2009
Beta Num, Colour, 56 min, French Version
One day every year, boys and girls from the “H’mongs’ ethnical minorities run down the surrounding hills in small groups towards the market. Wearing their best clothes, they start this unique day with dances and songs as stratagems of seduction and will carry on until late night, when newly formed couples will slowly disperse. But this exceptional day of ‘courtship’ is not for bachelors only: married men and women tacitly also regain freedom, for the time of a brief affair, with no consequence or future…
Finally, those who were separated by arranged marriages are allowed to join and, for a few hours, meet their first love again. These ancestral societies are not ruled by the same codes as our so called civilized ones. This unique tradition of its kind might one day disappear.