2012 • 9' • French & German
Director(s): Gil Kébaïli, Norbert Evangelista • Producer(s): Grand Angle Productions • Coproducer(s): France Télévisions • Format(s): HD
Rochefort is more of a naval shipyard than a port. Its central feature: the Royal Rope Factory, built lengthways so as to braid ropes in one piece. From the sky the 374-metre building looks like a virtual set.
Rochefort lies in ambush in a bend of the Charente. At the mouth of the river the fortress of Fouras used to keep watch. It was the starting point of the iron belt. A system put in place by Louis XIV’s strategists to protect the shipyards. You will discover all its links.
In the front line, the citadel on the Ile d’Aix was razed by the English before being fortified by Napoleon’s eagles. In the middle of Rochefort Bay sits the most televisual fortress in the Atlantic. Fort Boyard took 65 years to build and was facing a sad fate until it succumbed to the limelight…
The Ile d’Oléron closes the Bay of Rochefort to the south. Its oyster beds on the mudflats of the marshes of the Seudre owe much to Napoleon III. Flowing into the Seudre, the Tremblade canal, most important oyster port in France, is surely the most picturesque with its many-coloured houses. Images filled with poetry.
