La Marquise de Sade

In this lyrical portrait of a sweltering July, a seven‑year‑old girl named Mary is forced to march with her stern cousin Tulotte through the dusty roads that lead from Clermont‑Ferrand to the town’s abattoirs. The heat presses down on them, and Mary’s yearning for shade and a place to dream clashes with Tulotte’s rigid discipline, which insists that a military daughter must endure hardship. Along the way they pass two very different gardens—one shaded by towering trees, the other a bare plot of vegetables—hinting at secrets that lie just beyond the child’s reach.

Beyond the gardens, the landscape opens to the rolling fields and the distant silhouette of the Puy de Dôme, a mountain that fuels Mary’s endless questions about freedom and the world beyond her constrained life. As she listens to whispered explanations about a “dead gardener” and hidden graves, her imagination ignites, setting the stage for a tale of curiosity, quiet rebellion, and the mysterious forces that shape a young mind.