"Petites fuges" director Yves Yersin’s documentary about the closing of a mountain school at the foot of the Jura.

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In the tiny mountain village of Derrière-Pertuis, in the Jura mountains 1150 meters above sea level, live four families. Not even a dozen pupils between 6 and 12 go to the intercommunal school. For 41 years, Gilbert Hirschi has been the teacher, driven the school bus and played a paternal role. Now the school is scheduled to be closed.

His name is forever tied to the charming 1979 movie about liberation, Les petites fugues. Lausanne filmmaker Yves Yersin accompanied the teacher and his “lambs” for a year, documenting not only their idyllic daily life at school, but also revealing a teacher every pupil would wish for. The region is losing something that can never be brought back: togetherness and natural solidarity. This school of life, which taught values to so many, is being destroyed by bureaucracy and democratic decisions. Yersin’s film is very insightful, delightful, intelligent and softly critical, and the question remains: does everything have to be decided according to performance, effort and profit, and oriented towards calculation and bookkeeping?