Films d'en Haut - Film screening: Terres du ciel, Cueilleurs d'alpages and Kyrgyz Raclette

Tradition and modernity in the alpine pastures of Savoy, all the way to Kyrgyzstan. For generations, the Savoyards have mastered the art of transforming milk into cheese. The first film takes us to the Tarentaise alpine pastures to discover a handful of men and women who keep these mountains alive and thriving. We travel from one pasture to another, meeting and learning about the lives of alpine farmers, passionate about the mountains and their craft. Beaufort cheese is at the heart of this entire ecosystem, as its value, blending tradition and modernity, allows this alpine life to continue.

Producer: Pierre Guelpa, Société d’Economie Alpestre de Savoie, Syndicat du Beaufort, Cinedoc Films
Director: Vincent Ingels
Duration: 35 min
Country of production: France
Year: 2008
The second film focuses on the Kyrgyz people, of nomadic tradition, who have never learned to make cheese. During a trip to Kyrgyzstan, a Swiss woman was repeatedly approached by shepherds eager to learn the basics of cheesemaking. Upon returning to Switzerland, she founded an association to meet this demand and hired Marlène Galletti, a mountain guide and cheesemaker from Valais, to share this expertise. We followed her to the high pastures of Kyrgyzstan, in the Tian Shan mountain range on the border with China, at an altitude of 2,800 meters, to see how milk is transformed into cheese inside a yurt. A film by Sandra Hebler (23 minutes). This activity was led by a guide from the Pays d'art et d'histoire des Hautes vallées de Savoie (www.fondation-facim.fr) as part of the Les Films d'en Haut festival in Champagny-en-Vanoise.