Psychological drama about a young, inexperienced film reviewer who falls for the charms of a well-established female colleague. A challenging look at the essence of film critique as well as an erotic encounter between two unequals.

Claude Goretta directed “L'invitation” in 1973. For filmmaker Lionel Baier, born in 1975, it is like a “travelling companion”, to adapt Serge Daney’s expression. He feels it is definitive proof that a Swiss can be deeply Chekhovian. The young filmmaker goes to Geneva to ask his elder how he achieved the whoosh of water effect in the film, why attention to detail matters so much, and how to film great actors such as François Simon. This encounter with Claude Goretta – but also with Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Michel Robin and Frédérique Meininger – leads one of the greatest of Swiss filmmakers to open up about his work.

One summery day in 1890, the photographer Felix Arnaudin settles at the heart of a hamlet in the Landes to take pictures of its inhabitants. Among them, Emile, who lives alone with his three children. By nightfall, at the fireside, Emile tells his story to the photographer: his wife was a fairy. She disappeared.