UNE PASTORALE AMERICAINE

France

Documentary

Nestled in a valley among Lancaster County’s rolling farmland, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania has all the charm of small-town America. Yet behind this bucolic veneer lies a fracture in the making.
After months of bitter debate over Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, the attack on the U.S. Capitol on 6 January 2021 decisively split the community of Etown, as it’s known locally.
In this red district, a grassroots movement of far-right Christians has followed former Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s playbook: seize control of key local institutions to transform society, precinct by precinct, from the bottom up.
As with neighbouring towns, the most conservative partisans first took over Etown’s local Republican committee. With support from powerful fundamentalist Christians, their sights are now set on education.
In America, public schools are governed by local school boards, comprised of directors who are elected by universal suffrage.
Charged with setting the budget, school curriculum and library book policies, school boards have become the target of Christian nationalists.
In this critical electoral battle, a few open seats will determine the voting majority on Etown’s school board. Two competing slates run under the Republican banner: far-right Christians, handpicked by the local committee, and party-defying moderates.
A handful of Democratic candidates, undaunted by their longshot odds and incoming threats, hold out hope they might save their schools and community.
The war simmering in Etown is still very much civil. At public school board meetings, residents clash over closely held values. Behind closed doors, in homes and churches, community members strategise to defeat their opponents, who, for some, have now become the ‘enemy within’.
From the future of public education to the allure of theocracy, AN AMERICAN PASTORAL examines the viability of reconciliation in a deeply divided America.

Written & directed by: Auberi Edler
Produced by: Serge Lalou, Perrine Feminier
Cinematography: Auberi Edler
Editing: Barbara Bascou
Original Score: Siegfried Canto
Sound: Lumia Perniciaro

Statement of the director:
Elizabethtown. I discovered the town on a frigid February night. After months of probing from afar, I was finally there. My camera concealed to protect it as much from the drizzle as from potentially hostile passersby, I remember standing on the deserted main street, interrupted only by the occasional pickup roaring through.
For 30 years, my personal and professional life has been closely tied to the United States. Yet the images of the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021shook me to the core. How could I have lost sight of the despair and anger of a large segment of Americans? How long had I passed over the country’s vast countryside, its sleepy small towns and abandoned industrial areas? How had the temptation of theocracy, of conservative values from another era, spread so quickly and taken such deep root?
Etown, as the locals call it, is like thousands of small American towns. It, too, is emblematic of the civil and moral divide now plaguing the United States.
The atmosphere is tense, poisoned by fear of the "other," often just a familiar neighbour. Mistrust has devolved into all-pervasive paranoia, rendering communication impossible.
That's what I was contemplating that February evening as I looked out over the heart of this small town, awash in rain, where I knew no one, where every door was still closed to me.
It took time – so much time – to allay fears, to work around enduring hatred. It was through exchanging and listening that invaluable connections were made, by offering everyone, from Christian fundamentalists to progressive Democrats, what they can no longer afford each other: respect.
I discovered generosity where I least expected. And the film’s completion hasn’t changed that.
AN AMERICAN PASTORAL is one of those films that leaves its mark on the filmmaker, like a stitch in the side.
A part of me remains in Etown.
Auberi Edler, October 2024

Production:
Les Films d'Ici Méditerranée
https://www.filmsdicimediterranee.fr/

World Sales:
Mediawan Rights
https://rights.mediawan.com/