The daily life of patients and the work of doctors, including Dr. François Tosquelles, at the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Alban in Lozère.

Les inconnus de la terre starts like a traditional feature film: in the beginning of the film all the leading roles are given a short introduction. This is followed by a number of interviews, in which the makers unashamedly appear themselves. They include an interview with a lonely shepherd and one with three unmarried brothers who try to run the parental farm for better or worse. Notwithstanding the fact that this mode of interviewing has now become classical, les inconnus de la terre works rather refreshingly. The film is more than just an enumeration of problems. In an honest way it shows the ties of those involved to the land and to nature, in addition to being a plea for the modernization of French agriculture.

THREE CHEERS FOR THE WHALE chronicles the history of mankind's relationship with the largest and most majestic of marine mammals, and graphically exposes their slaughter by the fishing industry. Chris Marker's co-director, Mario Ruspoli, descendant of an aristocratic Italian family, had been a journalist, painter and ethnologist before discovering his vocation as a documentary filmmaker. In the Sixties he became one of the founders -along with Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin and Chris Marker- of the "direct cinema" movement, pioneering in the use of new lightweight cameras and synchronous sound recording equipment.