Shepherds (2024) Toronto 2024

Shepherd should not work. Everything about the this film should make this just an okay film that is exactly the sort of thing we’ve seen before in other forms, and yet director Sophie Deraspe and her crew have made a film that you will fall in volve with and want to see over and over again, especially on a big screen.

Based on a true story SHEPHERD is the story of a marketing writer who “goes on vacation” to France, never intending to go home. He falls into becoming a shepherd, falling in love with a beautiful civil servant he meets along the way.

As I said at the top this film hits so many of the  expected notes for a story like this and yet this so well done it is a perfect example of how important an artist is in creating a work of art. Deraspe takes a great script, a note perfect cast and some of the most beautiful images you’ve ever seen and mixes them together into a film that is like a siren song for your soul. When one character says late in the game “I don’t want to go back” you feel the exact same way, you don’t want to go back to reality, you want the film to go on forever. Barring that you want to jump on a plane and fly to France to herd animals.

You need to see this film as soon as you can, preferably on a he screen, not just because it’s a great film but because it will leave you feeling like me, with no words, only with emotions.

One of the truly great films of 2024.

Go see it.