Twenty-five years after rising to international acclaim in Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, actor Daniel Auteuil makes his directorial debut in this celebrated remake of a 1940s classic based on the novel by Marcel Pagnol. Auteuil stars as the eponymous well-digger Pascale, a widower living with his six daughters in the Provence countryside at the start of World War I.

His eldest (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) has returned home from Paris to help raise her sisters, and Pascale dreams of marrying her off to his loyal assistant. But when she's impregnated by a wealthy young pilot who is promptly summoned to the frontlines, Pascale is left to contend with the consequences. An exquisitely crafted, sun-drenched melodrama, set to a score by Academy Award-nominee Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech), the film captures all the warmth and humanist spirit of Pagnol's original work.