Photographer/director Raymond Depardon turns his gaze from the African desert (Untouched by the West, SFIFF 2003) and the Parisian legal system (10th District Court, SFIFF 2005) to the beautiful mountain regions of France in this insightful portrait of a community close to home yet seemingly worlds away: French farmers. Within the serene mountains and sun-kissed valleys of Lozère and Haute-Loire, generations-old farms are being converted into luxury homes and family-run agricultural businesses are being taken over by multinational conglomerates. For farmers such as Paul Arguad, alone with eight cows and a driving wind, or twenty-two-year-old Amandine Gagnaire, busy adjusting from city life to rural, life is not merely a sentimental attachment to the earth, but a constant battle against bureaucratic and financial hardships. For Depardon, who grew up on a farm and even wrote a memoir of his experiences, Profiles Farmers is one of his most personal films. His bond with these people is obvious, as is his affection for their quiet nature. “Shy and silent people must be given a chance to express themselves,” he writes. “We should not listen solely to talkative people or bigmouths.”