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Alpine Bread

Accession number: 
1953.0040
Production Years: 
1953

Languages:

Film Properties: 
Length (feet): 
1011 (16mm)
Length (minutes): 
29
Holding Institutions: 

Library and Archives Canada: 16mm, VHS, Digibeta.
"The shortage of firewood in the higher regions of the French Alps forced the villagers to adopt a system of communal bread baking over 500 years ago. With only enough wood for an annual firing of the oven, the community organized and baked all the required bread in the fall. Filmed in the villages of the French Alps concentrating on Villar d'Arène and Ventelon the film illustrates this ancient bread-making process from the ploughing of the fields and planting of seeds for grain through the preparation of the dough to the final baking and finished product. The story is told by Jean-Marie Clot a villager from Villar d'Arène who we see working the fields with his stubborn horse Poulet, preparing and kneading the dough and whose sister Elizabeth leads a herd up the Alps to graze. One of the highlights of the baking is the removal of loaves which become stuck at the back of the oven. A volunteer is wrapped up in winter clothes and sent in to retrieve them emerging later drenched in perspiration."

Bibliography: 

Crawley Films, Free Films: Sources of Free 16mm Sponsored Films in Canada Compiled and Published by Crawley Films (Ottawa: Crawley Films, April 1969): 27.
"Ancient bread-making methods still currently in use in village in the French Alps."