A bittersweet story of first love, lost love, and sexual scheming, Marine Francen’s debut feature The Sower (Le Semeur) is set in a French village filled only with women and children after all men are forced out following the republican uprising of 1851. With no idea of when—or if—their male counterparts will ever return, the women vow that if a man should stumble upon their pretty-as-a-picture mountainside community, he will become their shared husband. Naturally, this cannot end well. Soon after this promise is made, a rugged and handsome stranger (Alban Lenoir) with a mysterious past arrives, as if spoken into existence. At times the pacing runs slow and there’s never quite enough tension, but the film is carried by the doe-eyed Pauline Burlet as Violette, a young woman who finds herself torn between her duty to her community and her duty to her heart. If viewers can muster up the patience to stick it out, they’ll walk away feeling more than satisfied—and maybe even a little heartbroken. In French with subtitles.