Angels' Share
Feature-length documentary. Written and directed by Emmanuel Laurent. Produced by Emmanuel Laurent. A production Films À Trois.1989: Saint Sauvant, a tiny village of 500 dwellers lost in the vineyards of Saintonge, near Cognac. The Barons, the Duteaus and the Merlets, three walks of life in the Cognac industry, share their day-by-day joys and pains.
2007: Everything is the same and everything is different. Roland, the father of Jérôme and Mathieu, died of a bike accident in the mid 90's. Mariette, the mother, is still mail-woman. Jérôme, 32, took over his father's job as cooper and the good looking Mathieu, 28, sets up TVs in between heartaches. The brandy dealer, Gilles Merlet, "lord of the manor", is now traveling endlessly around the world. He has merged with Americans and made it in New York with a strange beverage, breaking in the meantime the unspoken feudal rules of the Cognac trade. Geneviève Duteau, the former public welfare orphan, is now a widow, but surrounded by a bunch of grand children. Her vision of the world is even more lucid and gay than it was 20 years ago.