Old-fashioned family physician Jean-Pierre deftly deals with his adoring patients in a rural French community. He is available 24/7 and the bachelor thinks himself indispensable. Jean-Pierre’s identity has become entirely intertwined with his profession. When a colleague diagnoses that he has cancer, Jean-Pierre decides to tell no one. His doctor is acquainted with his patient’s ways and sends a female doctor to the 50-year old’s practice to help out. Nathalie proves insightful and skilled enough to win over the locals. In the meantime, Jean-Pierre keeps pretending to be healthy, but cannot escape reality.

Médecin de campagne (2016) was a box office smash in France. Because he also works as a family physician, scriptwriter and director Thomas Lilti knows the ins and outs of the medical fraternity like no other. It’s against this background that he beautifully portrays the utterly human experiences of the collaborating rural doctors and their patients in this tragicomedy.