Édouard Bergeon calls for citizen action with his new film “The Green Promise”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Wednesday March 27, 2024: journalist and director Édouard Bergeon for his new film, “La Promesse verte”, with Alexandra Lamy.

Édouard Bergeon is a director and founder of the aunomdelaterre.tv channel created to support the agricultural world, eating well and rural life. In the name of the earth, it is also his first feature film which he directed in 2019, inspired by his own family story, with Guillaume Canet in the lead role. Wednesday March 27, Édouard Bergeon releases his new film: The Green Promise, with Alexandra Lamy. The story of a mother’s fight to save her son, sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking. False accusations, orchestrated by a government engaged in palm oil production and deforestation.

franceinfo: This film was born after reading an article during the filming ofIn the name of the earth. What did this article say?

Edward Bergeon: During filming, I was already thinking about the next film and I came across a press article which told of a farmers’ demonstration like the ones we saw a month or two ago on the roads of France. A farmer mentioned income problems, but he also said: “Let’s not import from the ends of the world what we don’t want at home“. And in this case, there it was: “Let’s not import palm oil that comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, whereas we were encouraged, around thirty years ago, to grow rapeseed to make biodiesel.” Like my father had been. This is where it gets personal. That’s when I said to myself: French farmers are going to be the joke once again. And there is the beginning of a film that can be born.

You also give us a political message through a human drama. I have the impression that we are still responding to Earth Name.

We’re small, but we can make things happen. Flipping labels means becoming a “consumer actor”: we can decide what we buy or not. I don’t eat palm oil. We have a ballot which is our blue card, buying what we want or not. We can also vote for politicians who can change things – because we can make things change. The incorporation of palm oil into biofuels was banned by the Council of State in 2019 in France. With NGOs and politicians playing the game, we can make things happen, and fortunately! My film talks about deforestation, but still delivers a positive message: when you fight, you can make things happen.

The starting point is In the name of the Earth, it’s your family history with the death of your father. There is a farmer who commits suicide every day in France. Is this also a tribute that you pay to him? Is this also a way of continuing to keep it alive?

Yes of course ! These are the values ​​he passed on to me. My father was already a traveler. It’s a tribute in my work. And then in this second film, The Green Promise, it’s perhaps more of a tribute to my mother, because it’s the role of a heroine. Alexandra Lamy plays an everyday fighter who doesn’t give up. In fact, this mother is destitute. It could be you, me, a dad, we are very small in the face of a big system. But out of love for her son, she will move mountains. So there’s a lot of my mom in this character and I think there’s also a little bit of me in the son, Martin. I made him a student who will see the ravages of deforestation and it’s true that having traveled the Amazon forests, it was important for me to tell about deforestation and these oceans of palm groves.

“When we are in the middle of these oceans of palm trees, we no longer hear anything, there is no more life whereas in a primary forest, it is very noisy. It’s beautiful, it’s a symphony .”

Edouard Bergeon

Elodie’s world

As a little boy, you were raised on this farm near Poitiers. What was your childhood like?

It was great to grow up surrounded by life, nature, animals. When I arrived in Paris and became a journalist, I had lots of people with diplomas around me. For me, that wasn’t the case, but I had a bac+15 in agriculture! It was my way of saying that I knew a lot of things in everyday life, because we must not forget that a farmer works between heaven and earth, he is vulnerable, he must adapt every time. days. And even if it took a life from me, an important life, agriculture brings me a lot every day. Everything we have on the table, what we eat, what we drink… It’s infinite.

I would like you to respond to the article by Telerama, published on March 20. You are presented there as “a defender of the agricultural world with contested methods”. With Antoine Robin, the producer of the film In the name of the Earthyou are singled out for somewhat complicated methods on film shoots…

I don’t want to comment on gossip.

It’s still important to talk about it.

No not at all.

You are criticized, in particular, for making advertising films.

You are not talking about the paper of Echoes of this weekend where I talk about everything I do, precisely, with Auchan, in particular, which makes an extra euro for the association of which I am the godfather, Des Enfants et des Arbres? In fact, we have to imagine that mass distribution – to talk about this brand exactly, there are others who play the game – if it did not exist, there would no longer be agriculture in France . Some 85% of French people do their shopping, do you know where? In mass distribution. I even made an advertising film for Auchan last summer called “The purchasing power of the French”. So. And not to buy elsewhere.

Do these accusations affect you?

There are no accusations, so I’m not going to comment on gossip.

It is still an article of Telerama.

So what ? I don’t know who is Telerama.

What does this film represent in all this work that you have already started?

I’m not here to be a prosecutor or to say: “yakafokon”. There are plenty of people who do this very well, including the paper you cite.

“I am here to bear witness with my camera, to look at and value those who nourish us and to create bridges rather than creating divides.”

Édouard Bergeon

at franceinfo

What’s next ?

Vacation and reading a good Telerama.