A burlesque fairy-tale about a group of five-year-olds whom Tom the tramp makes promise to forget everything they learnt in day-care.
A class of five-year-old children, Paul, Zoe, Jeremy, Jacques, Rose and Louis, gets lost in the forest after their schoolmistress faints from eating wild berries. Searching for the way out, they encounter a fourteen-year-old runaway, Tom the Truant, who strikes a deal with them: he will bring them back to their parents, safe and sound, when they have broken all the rules established in day-care. There follows the initiation into the life of a tramp: checking on your ear wax, sniffing your feet, consuming snake rolls, worms in mayonnaise and tapeworm salad, picking noses and lots of after-work rest. If they want to leave the forest they have to mend the car – for which they have to solicit the help of the Wolf Man, an old vagrant with a wolf’s head around his neck.
“The great Italian composer Carlo Crivelli, with whom I made five films, came to join us. Amazed by the workshops and the children, he contributed to our adventure with his 'Citta Aperta' Symphonic Orchestra and its 70 musicians he paid himself. It is a great gift, thanks to him, the film became a sort of opera in shorts.”
- Manuel Pradal
Born in 1968 in Montpellier, France. After studying science and literature in Montpellier, he graduated in directing from the Paris Film School La Fémis. While studying, he worked as assistant director to Agnès Varda. His graduation film Canti was selected for the Cannes Film Festival, and Marie from the Bay of Angels secured the director international reputation.