Les camisards

A costume film, but not a traditional one. René Allio uses his background as painter and theatre-maker (he was primarily familiar with the work of Bertolt Brecht) in devising this original historic narrative. The film is set in the period when Louis XIV abolished the edict of Nantes and declared French Protestants to be outcasts. Many Huguenots fled abroad, but especially in the Cevennes region in the South of France some Protestant rebels headed for the hills. Known as 'Camisards' they fought a stubborn guerrilla war for years against the royal troops. The film is set up as a chronicle and provides pictures of the aristocratic army generals and of the simple rebels. An off-screen text by the camisard Jacques Combassous, based on an authentic journal, links the different episodes.