Vedette is a cow. Vedette is queen. She was even once queen of the queens of the Alps. But Vedette is getting older. In order to save her the humiliation of being dethroned by young rivals, our neighbors, Elise and Nicole let us look after her for an entire summer. This is where our vision changes : our vision of the cows, of our local neighbors, in short, our vision of the world.
The Forest in Me is a film as a gift from a mother to her child for when he leaves home in the future. The film shares stories of people cut off from the world to examine how they might stay connected: An elderly hermit Agafya Lykova survives alone in the vast Siberian forest; a crew live isolated in a hi-tech pod on a volcano as a simulation of life on Mars; footage of the child's life shows him exploring the world for his first time.
The film presents a mix of home movie footage, ethnographic documentary, self-ethnography, and interviews, linked together by a narration voiced by Marshall herself. Through voiceover and montage, 'The Forest in Me' explores in an essayistic fashion topics that include time, technology, communication, memory, survival, love, and human relationships.