The Shepherd and the Bear

The Shepherd And The Bear is a powerful non-fiction look at the natural world in its broadest possible sense. Max Keegan’s film combines a picturesque study of nature with an equally perceptive look at human nature as it explores two very different ideologies. The result is thoughtful, empathetic and languorous, and always beautiful to look at.

Keegan’s premise is economically laid out in three captions: 1) following the killing of the last brown bear in the Pyrenees in 2004, the EU, Spanish and French governments have reintroduced the animal back into the region; 2) the Pyrenees’ rural communities have grazed their animals in the mountains for thousands of years; 3) few young people remain to continue the tradition. 

The chief dramatic flashpoint arises between the farming community of the Ariège uplands of southwestern France whose livelihoods are undermined by the bears killing their livestock and the ecologists who want to protect and nurture the endangered species.

Keegan’s film embodies the conflict in two lead characters. On Team Farmer is taciturn 63-year-old shepherd Yves who rocks a flat cap Tommy Shelby would envy, loves his cute-as-hell dogs Djembe, Kala and Baga, and mentors young shepherdess Lisa in the tricks of the trade. On Team Ecology is Cyril, a teenager doing exams who spends his days wearing camo trying to take a photograph of the elusive bears all the while arguing with his mother, a big voice in the anti-bear lobby. 

The cinematography is ravishing, capturing the natural world in all its beauty

The most compelling demonstrations of the debate come in heated town hall meetings and dinner table discussions between locals and environmentalists around ethics and nature that feel a bit like a rustic Jurassic Park. More frightening is a meeting of masked ursine vigilantes – you would not want to go on a bear hunt with these people.

Embedding himself in the Ariège community for three years, Keegan doesn’t really come down on a side or deliver a point of view. Instead, The Shepherd and the Bear is an immersive, lyrical ode to both nature and to those bewitched by it. 

Scored by Amine Bouhafa with a melancholy delicacy, the cinematography by Keegan and Clément Beauvois is ravishing, capturing the natural world in all its beauty. Yet for all the wide shots of misty mountains, sun-kissed hills and verdant forests, perhaps the most telling image is a close-up of the weathered lines on Yves’ face. They speak deeply to a way of life that has all but vanished. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas Feb 6, 2026