New Film About Rural Frenchwomen During WWI Opens in Jaffrey

A significant contender for nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 2019 Academy Awards®, The Guardians opens this Saturday, August 18 at 7pm at The Park Theatre's River Street Theatre (RST) in Jaffrey. It screens again on Wednesday, August 22 at 2pm.

The Guardians is an affecting human drama of love, loss, and resilience that unfolds against the backdrop of World War I. The women of the Paridier farm, under the deft hand of Hortense, the family's matriarch (Nathalie Baye,) must grapple with the workload while the men, including two sons, are off at the front. Hortense reluctantly brings on an outsider, the hard-scrabble teenage orphan, Francine (Iris Bry), to help her daughter Solange (Laura Smet). New tools allow the women to triumph over the land, newfound independence is acquired, yet emotions are stirred especially when the men return from the front on short leaves. Acclaimed filmmaker Xavier Beauvois (Of Gods and Men) revels in the mysteries and beauties of the French countryside, here unravaged by war, with painterly images bathed in natural light, yet keeps his focus on the intricate drama that plays out against the upheaval of the Great War.

Ann Hornaday's review in The Washington Post begins, "Like the cinematic equivalent of slow food, "The Guardians" is a rich, simmering cassoulet of a film, one that asks viewers to adjust their metabolisms accordingly."

Mike LaSalle of The San Francisco Chronicle remarks in his review, "The performances are extraordinary, as they often are in Beauvois' films, with Baye a study in quiet suffering and Bry wonderfully enigmatic - seemingly simple, but hinting at a soul capable of expansion and adaptation."

The film is in French with English subtitles.

Tickets for The Guardians (Rated R) are $8.00. Seniors, active military, students, and TEACHERS are $7.00. More program and schedule information, as well as ticket purchases, can be found at RiverSt.org or by calling the RST Box Office (603) 532-8888. The after-hours box office can be reached by calling OvationTix at (866) 811-4111.

The River Street Theatre is located in downtown Jaffrey, New Hampshire at 6 River Street. The River Street Theatre is sponsored by Grove Street Fiduciary, Coca-Cola, the Board of Trustees of the Park Theatre, Janet S. Grant, Betty Locke, Owen Houghton and the James F. & Fernande Kelly Charitable Trust.

The Guardians is part of The Park Theatre's Summer Festival 2018.

The Park Theatre first opened in Jaffrey in 1922 and was the center of community life as a movie and vaudeville house for 54 years until it closed in 1976. Purchased by The Park Theatre, Inc. in 2006, it will be rebuilt as a state-of-the-art film and performing arts center, featuring two auditoriums seating 485, presenting movies, live theatre, including children's productions, concerts, and lectures as well as offering a place for business and community gatherings for the Monadnock Region and its 100,000 residents, school districts and dynamic artistic community. The new Park Theatre is scheduled to begin construction in 2018.

The Park Theatre currently operates the River Street Theatre (RST), a small live entertainment and cinema venue, located adjacent to the construction site as an interim theatre until the new Park Theatre opens. Opened in January of 2017, the RST holds the title of "smallest theatre in New England."