Bear Skin
Yann, a newcomer from the city, arrives in a remote mountain village during the Bear Festival and is chosen to play the beast in a ritual hunt. When the villagers capture him and sentence him to death, the game stops feeling like one—and the manhunt becomes frighteningly real.
Yann, a recently divorced Parisian, moves to the isolated village of Montbrun in the Pyrenees. During the annual Bear Festival, he is chosen to play the Bear in a ritual hunt, alongside Sophie as the Shepherdess. As the chase turns increasingly violent and surreal, Yann escapes through forests and caves, believing his life is in danger. At dawn he learns the hunt was staged; since he remained uncaught, he is crowned King of the village.
Director's note
Although France is rich in folklore, legends, and popular imagination, much of this heritage has disappeared from contemporary cinema. Yet many of these traditions still survive in local rituals. In the Pyrenees, the Bear Festival celebrates the return of spring through a symbolic hunt: a man dressed as a bear is chased by villagers after supposedly abducting a young woman, embodying the tension between nature and culture. Inspired by this ritual, Bear Skin blends folklore with contemporary concerns. As Yann becomes the festival “bear”, the game gradually turns into a dangerous pursuit, blurring the line between performance and reality. Mixing suspense, dark humor, and elements of the fantastic, the film explores themes of belonging, loneliness, and the power of collective belief. Emerging from realistic settings and social tensions, the fantastic arises through ritual itself, creating a modern fable that stands between realism and genre cinema.
Producer's note
I have known Marc Charley for years, and our collaboration has always been driven by a shared passion for unconventional storytelling. His narrative shorts explore the porous boundary between reality and the supernatural, combining atmosphere, ambiguity, and a strong sense of genre. "Bear Skin" is both a stand-alone project with strong audience appeal and a continuation of Marc’s artistic explorations. What particularly attracts me is its cinematic setting in a remote rural community near the French–Spanish border, its unsettling depiction of village life, and its descent into nocturnal suspense, ritual, and mystery. We plan to develop Bear Skin as a French–Spanish co-production, potentially with a third partner such as Belgium or Luxembourg, integrating Spanish creative and technical elements. The project will be presented at international markets and co-production platforms to secure partners and financing, and we are fully committed to bringing Marc Charley’s vision to the screen.