Action !
COGNAC ET LITTERATURE, PASSIONS FRANÇAISES
Marie-France Brière


synopsis
DOCUMENTARY – 52′ All it took was a meal with friends in the Charente, a creak from the old sideboard, and an unfamiliar bottle with a fairytale label, for me to discover the name DELAMAIN! A Protestant family from Dublin who have lived in Jarnac since 1760. I can’t wait to introduce you to them. But how can I meet them? They who have made the culture of secrecy their emblem? Over the generations, they have written books, now out of print, but which will be my wartime treasures, my travelling companions and my inspiration… They will tell me stories and I will film them. They will teach me patience and I will take my time to film what they have written so well: The alchemy of distillation, the ageing in the cellars that makes the eau de vie magical! The slow process of ageing, under the genial benevolence of the cellar master, the great computer of this transformation. And then the slow, generous evolution of this exceptional cognac, always carried out by the négociants, manufacturers from the same family, from generation to generation! And always Jarnac, their unchanging capital city, which has welcomed them all this time, building a bridge between them and the world. And because they knew how to give time to time, the Delamain family continued all these years to cultivate the eau-de-vie and make this very old cognac as they would create a work of art… And in the same way, because they had the time and the taste, they wrote books on the history (of cognac, for example), ornithology and heritage and created the Stock publishing house to publish them and one of the finest and oldest bookshops in Paris to sell them, which still bears the Delamain name. This is the parallel story of this family that I would like to tell you.
Additional Information
Shooting in Charente from 13 February to 31 March 2023 Location: Angoulême, Jarnac, Barbezieux, Courbillac, Saint-Brice, Gondeville Production aid from the Département de la Charente and the Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine, in partnership with the CNC.
release date
2023
filmmaker
Marie-France Brière
Producer
La Curiosité
script
–
casting
La famille Delamain