Director Philippe Fernandez returns to the subject of extraterrestrial life and our relationship to outer space in his feature debut. In a small community poised on the precipice of the space age, the conquest of space soon to be a reality, a geological event forces it to confront and reconcile its collective thoughts on space, time, and humanity. Fernandez’s film is a series of tableaux that serves as metaphors for aspects of life ranging from the silly to the sublime, where characters wonder out loud how they should relate to a changing world. Sometimes strange, often amusing, always demanding, Fernandez provokes questions in the viewer at the same time as engaging our empathy for the community. Like he did with his earlier Connaissance du monde (drame psychologique), he uses space as a tool with which to explore humanity and its meaning, nature, and place in the world.