"A Thursday in July" by Didier Michel | Black Lands

In the devastated Champagne region at the beginning of the 20th century, two villages face each other like sworn enemies. Cuis, a winegrowing village on the heights, struggles for its survival. Nothing smiles upon the winemakers. The phylloxera epidemic, poor harvests, the betrayal of the trade...

In the plain, La Loge, enjoys a flourishing agriculture. Pauline, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, falls in love with Nonan, a young winemaker from Cuis. In these two worlds so different from each other, this budding romance is swept away by the pride of an uncompromising father despite a heavy family secret...

As if fate had not trampled them enough, Nonan and Honoré, childhood friends, companions in misfortune, spend their twenties in the trenches.

In this primal pain that burns like at Verdun, like steel in flesh, the war never ceases to embrace men with its deadly kiss. Amidst this blind turmoil, a glimmer of hope is reborn, like in a stormy sky where the wind chases away the clouds to prove that the sun exists.