Violette is old enough to marry in 1852 when her mountain village is brutally deprived of all its men following the repression of the Republicans ordered by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. The women spend months in total isolation. Desperate to one day see their men again, they take an oath: if a man comes, he will be for everyone. Life must continue in the belly of each and every one of them.
Having spent her childhood in the countryside, Marine Francen moved to Paris to study literature and history. She discovered the film industry on landing a production job for the company of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant and later, between 1999 and 2012, worked as an assistant director for filmmakers including Olivier Assayas and Michael Haneke, among others. She has written and directed four short films, one of them a documentary, before debuting in the feature-length format with Le Semeur.