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THE BEAR HUNTING

MECLIMONE PRODUZIONI CINEMATOGRAFICHE S.R.L. - as PROD

Drama - Development 2022

Based on a true story. france, 1893. When the growing hostility between french and italian immigrant workers explodes with rage, a young newly- appointed french captain must risk his life, and his men's, to save hundreds of italians from the xenophobic man hunting.

- Year of production
- 2022
- Genres
- Drama, Historical
- Countries
- ITALY, UNITED KINGDOM
- Budget
- 3 - 5 M$
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Writer(s)
- Lorenzo COLONNA, Filippo CESARI
- Producer(s)
- Davide MONTECCHI (MECLIMONE PRODUZIONI CINEMATOGRAFICHE S.R.L.), Giada MAZZOLENI (PAGURO FILM)
- Synopsis
- France, August 1893.
  A scorching sun reflects in the salt evaporation ponds where men and women, bearing years of hard manual jobs, work. Aigues-Mortes is a poverty-stricken town where the few piecework jobs available are given to underpaid Italian immigrants who are used to work harder than the French people. This aggravates the situation and builds up the tension between the two groups. These are the stressful circumstances that the young French captain AUGUST CABLEY has to deal with. He is new in town, so nobody acknowledges his authority, not even his own men. Everything starts with a stone that hits an Italian at the ponds. What would have normally ended with a brawl, triggers a chain reaction of escalating violence and unleashes the repressed xenophobic fury of every French person in town. Cabley takes action, but one of his men – a frightened 18- year-old policeman – shoots a Frenchman dead. Even if it’s not the Italians’ fault, people blame them. It’s the event that sets off the xenophobic bomb. Madness spreads like wildfire and Italian bodies begin to pave the streets. Cabley escorts a group of frightened Italians to the train station where they can leave Aigues-Mortes, but halfway down, they find themselves squeezed between two armed groups of enraged French people. Panic spreads and Cabley orders his men to shoot, but it’s like throwing a stone into the River Thames hoping to block it. Cabley and his men fight for the lives of the Italians, and their efforts are rewarded when they escort a small group of survivors to safety. At the trial, the only defendant is an Italian who is found guilty of threats and
  violence. None of the French people involved in the events is accused.
  On black, we read the following information:
  The head physician of the hospital in Marseilles denied first aid to the Italians for more than eight hours. The authorities shut down the investigation as quickly as possible because of the lack of witnesses. The exact number of Italians killed during those two days has never been established. The French authorities talked about seven victims, the
  London Times said fifty.
  Unofficial sources talked about more than one hundred victims.
- Partners & financing
- Emilia Romagna Film Commission