L'orange de Noël (1996)

In 1913, in Corrèze, Cécile Brunie (Sophie Aubry), a young teacher from the city, arrives in a small village whose poor, Catholic residents are deeply devout. She teaches at the municipal school, which is public and secular, and which Father Brissard (Paul Le Person) denounces in sermon after sermon, wearing down one teacher after another because he cannot tolerate the separation of church and state in education. She quickly comes up against local gossip and rural life in the early twentieth century, on the eve of the First World War. Fred (Stéphan Guérin-Tillié), her suitor, is an anarchist journalist who deserts the army, where he was due to complete his military service, and is wanted by the gendarmes. The teacher takes one of her pupils, Malvina (Lys Caro), under her wing. Malvina is considered an idiot by her family and the villagers, but has great potential, and Cécile prepares her for the school-leaving certificate. The tenacious priest eventually gets his “revenge” by making an offer to Malvina’s brother, Pierre (Jean-Yves Berteloot). Faced with the promise of prosperity, Pierre is about to refuse, but his mother accepts the deal. Malvina is therefore sent to the private school shortly before the school-leaving certificate exams. Pierre and Cécile fall in love as war is declared and Pierre is mobilized.