HOW TIGHTLY CAN you hold on to your pastoral dreams, when big business flexes its muscles and casts threat at you? This is the central thread of Frédéric Farrucci’s film The Mohican, which screens on this year’s European Film Festival South Africa, in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and online for free via the festival’s website, until 19 October 2025.

Edited with a tight hand and beautifully cast, the work presents the give and take of nature in idyllic Corsica. The presence of goats always lends a level of humanity to any story, and here, even more so, with their idiosyncratic beards and voices in unison. But it is also here where we meet Joseph (Alexis Manenti), the goatherd and owner of a piece of land wanted by developers who have more than a hint of mafia energy in their working strategies.

They want to buy his land. He doesn’t want to sell. And thus sparks a narrative of political factions and violence which render Joseph a hero in exile, but one without the recourse of anyone who can stand up to the Corsican heavies.

But the value of this film is more than about unexpected heroes in a world rotten with narcissistic villains who will stop at nothing. It is a beautiful work which is threaded through with tropes from the eponymous 19th century colonialist tale by James Fenimore Cooper as it celebrates the noble shape of Manenti’s head in conveying the sense of fiercely unequivocal yet understated morality he represents. It’s about how the media can sway values and opinions with a turn of language and a press of a button that renders one story more hot than another, for its intended readers.

And it is about goats. Their value to the world in which we live, and the ways in which a concrete coastline to a beautiful piece of this world is but the fruit of fickle dreams of men who want to make money. It’s also about how shockingly cheap lives can be in the face of others’ ambition.

Ultimately, it’s a deeply watchable piece of cinematography which tells a cogent tale with important morals, but immerses you into the magnificence of a raw landscape in a way that will replenish you.

•  The Mohican is written and directed by Frédéric Farrucci and features a cast headed by Delia Andreani, Luiza Benaïssa, Thomas Boisnard, Marie Bronzini, Dominique Colombani, Antoine Comiti, Andrea Cossu, Daniel Di Grazia, Flavio Dominici, Michel Ferracci, Didier Ferrari, Théo Frimigacci, Paul Garatte, Marcandria Gonzalez, Alexis Manenti, Marc Memmi, Jean Michelangeli, Anthony Morganti, Marie-Pierre Nouveau, Jean-Jacques Ottavy, Pascal Polidori, Enzo Porsia, Pietro Porsia, Jean-Jacques Soavi, Mara Taquin and Felicia Viti. It is produced by Céline Chapdaniel and Diane Jassem and features creative input by Rone (composer) Jeanne Japoirie (cinematography), Mathilde Van de Moortel (editor), Lara Hirzel (production design) and Juliette Girard (costumes). In French with English subtitles, it is part of the 12^th European Film Festival in South Africa, screening at The Bioscope independent cinema in Milpark, Johannesburg, The Labia in Cape Town and Hyde Park NuMetro in Johannesburg, as well as online via the festival’s website, until 19 October 2025.