Narrator: What would the Moulin Rouge be without feathers?

At the cabaret in Paris they're an important part of every show.

And all the boas, headdresses and accessories worn are made by Maison Février, a small family run business owner Editte Février and her team are experts when it comes to feathers.

Editte Février: Those are spectacular.

In a cabaret show like the Moulin Rouges, you always need feathers, rhinestones, sequins and beautiful costumes.

Feathers are feminine and are an integral part of a cabaret costume.

It wouldn't be as lively, and feathers lend a woman grace and lightness.

Narrator: Using special methods, the plumassiers craft the feathers into costumes and accessories.

All the work is done by hand and that's time consuming.

It can take 50 days to create a single costume Céline Perus: It was very exacting work.

It depends on the feather... ... no two are alike, each one is unique.

You can't just stick them in a machine.

Narrator: Plumassiers have been practicing their traditional craft at Maison Février since the firm's founding back in 1929, but they only divulge their trade secrets to their chosen successors.

Editte: our know how is a trade secret, so we don't reveal how we do certain things.

It's always the most senior plumassiers in our studio who pass on these little secrets to the younger ones when they start working with us.

Narrator: the feathers come from birds that are bred specially for feather production.

They arrive from around the globe, whether it's ostrich, pheasant o duck feathers, Maison Février has them all.

The feather costumes for the Moulin Rouge are continually renewed according to the original designs.

Editte: Here, for example, we're redoing all of the costumes for the finale.

Narrator: Editte and her team tailor the elaborate outfits so they fit each of the dancers like a glove.

Editte: A dancer must feel comfortable in her costume.

She has to exert herself a lot on stage and if her costumes not comfortable, it can get pretty tiring.

So it needs to be really comfortable for the dancer and easy to wear.

Narrator Each costume is a work of art.

Between 300 and 500 feathers are used to make each one.

Tänzerin Jasmine I guess I feel very privileged and lucky to be wearing a masterpiece and to take care of the costumes, somethin so valuable that you're wearing.

It gives you a feeling inside that I guess helps with the expression when you're on stage as well.

Narrator: And when the lights go down, these costumes really get their chance to shine.

The Moulin Rouge is proud of its long working relationship with Maison Février Thierry Outrilla: This collaboration is important because without the feathers and the jewelry, the Moulin Rouge wouldn't be what it is.

People come to see something exceptional, and when you see these tall dancers wearing extraordinary jewelry and extraordinary costumes, there are more than a thousand costumes.

And at the same time, these plumes of feathers are turning and twirling... ... it's very sensual.

Narrator: Editte and her team are always happy to see that costumes being worn on stage.

Editte: It's gratifying because even if you know the show and see it from time to time, you still think, wow, it's magnificent.

Narrator: Audiences also enjoy the colorful extravaganza with its flamboyant costumes.

Woman 1: Phenomenal show.

Lots of feathers in the air made you sneeze a little bit.

Man 1: It was tremendously amazing.

The costumes were fantastic an the choreography was excellent.

I have never seen anything in my life like this.

Woman 2: The costumes are incredible.

I can't even begin to think about how much time and effort went into them.

It was just amazing.

The whole thing is just every single costume was individually beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful.

Narrator: Beautiful they are all part of the razzle dazzle of the Moulin Rouge.

Narrator 2: It looks like a movie set but this island actually exists.

You'll find it in Normandy, France.

Mont-Saint-Michel, as it's calle is a social media sensation.

But does it live up to the hype?

And are you aware of its many secrets?

Woman 1: Yeah.

It's like, WOW, how did they build this?

Woman 2: Oh, amazing.

Man 1: So good.

Man 2 It's seemingly built on thin air Woman 3: The building is beautif The way it was built with a wall already around it.

Man 3: From the autoroute you can see it from 20km away.

you can see Le Mont St Michel.

It's just unbelievable.

Narrator 2: Mont St Michel was one of the most difficult construction projects of the Middle Ages.

And when visiting today, it can get very dangerous.

But more on that later.

Those who DO arrive unscathed can discover many secrets.

Anne Le Page Hello, Im Anne, Im a guide in the Abbaye of Mont St Michel for nine years.

And with those keys, I' going to show you secret places.

Narrator 2: You can cross the tw kilometer long bridge to the island at low tide, by foot or shuttle bus.

Around 3.5 million visitors come here every year, so it can get pretty crowded!

Anne: My tip is to come in January or December, so it gets very, very quiet.

You feel like almost alone in the village and you get also beautiful lights.

The landscape is beautiful here and important site as well, which is quite spectacular.

Narrator 2: This is the West Terrace where you'll find the abbey church entrance.

It was built on this hil from the 11th century onwards.

Many buildings are buil or stacked on top of each other.

How did they achieve this, back in the day?

Anne: It's hard to believe how they built such buildings on the Mount here.

Mont St Michal is like a rock cone, something like a pyramid.

We are almost on the summit at 80m above the sea level.

Try to imagine a system of flat boats.

According to the tides, those medieval builders brought all the constructio materials on those flat boats - barges, actually, from different place in Normandy, even from England.

Narrator 2 There's a huge height difference between low and high tide in the bay, sometimes by as much as 14m.

At low tide, you can walk to the island across the tidal flats, but it's best to go with a guided group, otherwise it can get dangerous.

Anne: Don't venture by yourself into the bay because in the past, even quit recently, people can still get stuck in the bay because of those quick sands.

And if you have still a big proportion of water inside it gets like a soak in effect.

If the tide is coming in, if you're alone, if you can't get, out of those, you know, potential quicksand, that could be dangerous.

Narrator 2: Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey combines Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

There are plenty of secret waiting to be discovered here.

But first, Anne leads us to this door.

Anne And now a little passage that, not everybody gets to see, actually.

We can now go higher into the Abbey.

So we are now under the terrace of the choir of the abbey church.

Narrator 2: These flying buttresses ar typical of Gothic architecture and are carrying weight on the outside.

One of them is actually a passageway.

Anne: This is here built on a flying buttress.

The lace staircase.

It is like lace designed into the granite.

And, well, that was built, back in the Middle Ages here.

So, you have actually here almost, the top of the mount.

The only access to the bell tower just here on the left.

And finally, Archangel St Michael on the very top - used also as a lightning rod protecting against the potential, storms, lightning here.

Because that's what caused big damages in the past.

Narrator 2: A thousand years ago, Benedictine monks lived here for many centuries.

Today, the island is mainly a tourist attraction.

But in the Middle Ages, scores of pilgrims flocked to the island.

But guess what?

A few monks and nuns actually still live here today.

Anne: Actually, five monks and seven nuns altogether 12, And they are having services three times a day.

It's like the convention with the French government to do services into that monument.

In exchange, they have a place for them, privates, obviously.

Narrator 2: And lastly, time to reveal Mont Saint Michel's darkest secret.

Two isolation cells to lock u particularly serious offenders.

From the French Revolution until the year 1863, the abbey was used as a prison.

Anne: You can see here inscriptions from, probably, prisoners that stayed here for long, long hours or long days of detention.

Some of the prisoners wrote their years of sufferments in different places.

Imagine how awful it was to stay here.

Narrator 2: Much of what has happened on the island over the different centuries is yet to be researched, and some things will remain forever unknown.

And so Le Mont St Michel remains a deeply mysterious place.

Laurence Ployez: Making a great champagne takes passion.

Each bottle carries a littl piece of the winemaker's soul.

Patrick Demouy: The locals are alway extremely careful when opening a bottle of champagne.

They do it gently and quietl to avoid losing a single drop.

People don't pass the cork here anymore.

It's considered tasteless.

Stéphane Rossillon: Certain champagnes and grapes go well with certain dishes, sweet or savory.

And it's wonderful to create a dish to fit a particular champagne.

Laurence Ployez: I came to the vineyard i 1988 to help my father, Gérard Ployez.

Hello.

Im Laurence Ployez.

I'm from the third generation at Ployez Jacquemart Vineyard in Ludes, in the heart of Montagne de Reims.

I love opening an old bottle of champagne from my cellar and sharing it with my family.

Pinot noir, chardonnay and Pinot meunier are the three primary grape varieties grown in Champagne.

The ground is very important because the plant lives in a specific soil and it transports elements from the soil into the fruit, the grapes.

But the climate also has a considerable impact.

You can tell how it varie from one vineyard to the next, even within a village.

And that makes a big difference in taste.

Patrick: I'm Patrick Demouy, professor of merit of Medieval History at the University of Reims.

Ive dealt with champagne in my research work, but even more so through my family.

I'm from this regio and have been interested in it since I was a child.

The region of Champagne was the first to obtain a controlled designation of origin certification in the 1930s.

You can make sparkling wine from any variety, but to be called champagne, it has to come from this soil and boast the quality of our vines and grapes.

Laurence: When harvesting the grapes, we pick them by hand and bring them to the wine press.

That's where the champagne production process starts.

We're standing at a wine press my father had built in 1967.

It's a traditional wine press.

The one challenging thin is that you need two strong men to fill it.

We have 4000kg of grapes in it at the moment.

We press the grapes, then let the juice sit.

Then we add some yeast and sugar.

Then we let the wine rest for 2 to 3 months.

That gives us a base wine like this one.

Patrick: Its hard to pinpoin a single inventor of champagne.

Dom Pérignon was an enologist who is extremely good at working with wine, and he perfected the art of assemblage.

That refers to the blending of base wines from differen vineyards and grapes to create a cuvée with a balanced taste.

Laurence: Then we fill the bottles to create the foam.

For this purpose, we take a bit of yeast tirage liqueur.

Tirage liqueur is just a base wine into which we've dissolved beet sugar.

The mixture is sealed in the bottle, and we take it down to the cellar and lay it on boards.

And the yeast bacteria then eat the sugar we've adde to the tirage liqueur, creating carbon dioxide and alcohol.

Laurence: Were about 25m below ground.

We are standing by walls of solid limestone.

That's the yeast that ate th sugar producing carbon dioxide.

We store the bottles for 2 to 3 years.

Once the bottles have aged enough, we put them on these racks and turn them one by one.

It takes about six weeks.

You keep turning the bottles until they reach the final position you see here.

They're almost vertical.

After the turning process, we stand the bottles upright, like here.

This way the yeast in the bottle's neck barely comes into contact with the wine and doesn't impact the aging process.

It's the traditional method, but it's hardly ever used anymore.

You can store the bottles for 10, 15, or 20 years if you want.

It's no problem.

And when you open a bottle, you'll never be disappointed.

Stéphane: Hello.

My name's Stéphane Roussillon.

I've been working at Les Avisés hotel-restaurant in Champagne in the heart of the Côte des Blanc for ten years now.

I cook using champagne, and I'm a great connoisseur of the bubbly.

You open a bottle of champagne very cautiously.

We remove the muselet.

Then we grasp the cork with one hand and turn it carefully without making an explosion or a loud bang.

It should only fizzle.

We cautiously let out the fizz and... Voilá!

Laurence: Most important of all is that whatever you drink makes you happy.

Don't listen.

If a neighbor or a sommelier starts telling you al about a fantastic wine or aroma, this is about what you enjoy, your personal taste.

Every person responds differentl and that's very important.

Stéphanie Kilgast: When I see this kind of things of trash, I always think, okay, this is what's going to be left once humanity's gone.

Not art or science, no, our plastic trash.

And that's wh I like to use it in my own work, because I feel like that's the most obvious stupid thing that we do.

Narrator 4: Natur reasserting itself in the world.

That's the overriding theme of Stéphanie Kilgasts work.

The French artist form plants and creatures out of clay and lets them populate and even overpower trash produced by humans.

A warning to humanity.

Stéphanie Kilgast Art, for sure, can help question the world that we live in, and in a way that is much more visceral than a documentary can be.

Usually artwork touches you emotionally, and not intellectually.

And I feel like that is, what is most important in the art.

Narrator 4: Stéphanie Kilgast studied architecture.

As a child, she loved making miniature sculptures.

She's been creating her discarded objects pieces since 2017, and people love them.

She's got hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and exhibits in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.

Stéphanie: In my work, there are no humans left, so it's kind of like I tend to describe it as a post-apocalyptic, cheerful vibe, you know, like it's really happy.

Everyone is colorful, everything is chill, and you have those colors and shapes and you just have what's left of humanity, which unfortunately isn't the beautiful things.

It's trash.

Narrator 4: The little town of Vannes in southern Brittany.

This is where the artist lives and works.

The plants that sprout from the town's crevices are her inspiration.

This unstoppable march of nature is reflected in her pieces.

Stéphanie: Through my work, I really picked an interest in nature.

And so now, when I'm out and about, I always look out for the tiny things that grow out everywhere.

And yeah, I really love it.

So anything that grows really picks my interests.

Narrator 4: Her message is expressed not just in sculptures, but also paintings, whether in small, or in large formats.

Nature is always vibrant and rampant and even colonizes books - THE classic cultural asset.

Stéphanie: The basic idea of books i that its a bit like the trash.

So the book is just a representation of knowledge and what we know and, about everything tha we're doing to the environment.

And yet, despite our knowledge, we do nothing.

Narrator 4: As for the trash, it keeps piling up.

Stéphanie Kilgast now receives some of her garbage from friends.

Discarded items are the basis for new inspiration.

Stéphanie: I really hope with my work that people start to question the way they live and the way they consume, and that they also question their status of consumer as a human being.

because we are much more than just people who buy stuff.

Narrator 4: Humanit can't destroy nature entirely.

But they CAN alter it to the point where OUR lives are no longer possible.

Stéphanie Kilgasts work shows what could be left behind after.

Narrator 5: Lavender fields in the south of France.

It's pretty is a picture everywhere you look between June and August, when the plants are in bloom, the Valensole Plateau turns into a fragrant sea of flowers.

Each year, people from around the world visit.

Some keep coming back, like landscape photographer Fabio.

Antenore.

Fabio Antenore: This is whats cool about Provence.

We have these incredible colors and the scent that's everywhere.

We have the lines that go way back into the distance.

Everything that I love.

At the end, there's a tree.

It's like Disneyland for photographers.

Narrator 5 Fabio likes to share his passion with others and takes amateur photographers on guided tours through the lavender fields.

The Swiss photographer has pioneered a technique that's revolutionize classical landscape photography.

He superimposes differentl lit shots of the same subjects on top of one anothe to create hyperrealist images.

As a result, his landscape photos look more mystical than realistic.

Fabio Antenore: My hyperrealistic landscape photography is about bringing together all the emotions I felt before while taking the shots in one picture.

The different moments, situations and ambient light.

You could take two, three, four or up to 40 or 50 images to convey that feeling to the observer.

Narrator 5: It's this feelin that he also wants to transmit to the photo tour participants.

Fabio Antenore T he first lines are these here.

The best ones are actually those two there and in the middle.

Narrator 5: When it comes to framing their image, the amateurs get the help from Werner Woska.

He's been a landscape photographer for more than two decades and knows: whether it's classic or hyperrealistic photography, the ground rules are always the same.

Werner Woska: Whats important with such wide open landscapes is the foreground.

Ofte you'll see pictures with a tree somewhere in the background, but nothing up front.

It's a broad field, so this line add a nice depth to the landscape.

We have a nice foreground with the blooming lavender and that's half the battle one when taking a good landscape photo.

Narrator 5: The first successful shots aren't long coming much to the delight of the tour participants.

Wiebke Braasch: The straight lines, the symmetry of the fields.

It's just amazing.

I find this bluish purple stunningly beautiful.

And then there's the acoustics, the hum of the bees and the blossom which move around in the wind.

It's just wonderful.

Bernd Kurpiers: Its always a challenge in terms of composition.

Every picture tells a great story.

That's clear.

Narrator 5: But the popularit of the lavender fields has one big drawback many farmers fear for their crops.

Fabio Antenore: Were on private property.

Everything here belongs to a farmer who earns his living growing lavender.

So when I'm here with a group, I have to ensure that we protect the lavender.

That means not ramming it with tripods or stepping on the plants, or leaving beer bottle or cigarette butts lying around.

I think of it like being in someone's living room: I should leave the place in the same state I found it in.

Narrator 5: The photo tour lasts for a week and the group is on the go day and night.

Because in the dark a whole new side of the lavender fields comes to light.

Fabio loves this diversity, even though shooting at night can be tricky Fabio Antenore: There shouldnt be too much light pollution, though sometimes that's also really cool.

It's okay to just have the black night sky and the Milky Way, but sometimes it's also nice when there's a bit of a glow from the city down below.

Narrator 5: Whether classical or modern - in the lavender fields, everyone is sure to find their picture perfect image.

Pierre-Brice Lebru: We dont know exactly how Camembert originated, but it comes from Normandy.

It dates back to the year 1100 so almost a thousand years ago.

Patrick Mercier Camembert is a symbol of France.

It's a very special cheese and not easy to make.

It's very labor intensive.

My name is Patrick Mercier.

I'm a farmer who started making Camembert ten years ago.

Without happy cows, there's no good milk.

That's for certain.

The cows are out in the pasture at least nine months, a year.

And during this time they're out day and night.

The grass is important for the cows nutrition.

A wide variet of grasses grow in our pasture.

The greate the variety, tastier the milk.

Pierre-Brice: There are guidelines for Camembert from Normandy.

What the cows are allowed to eat, how long they spend outdoors, and how often they're milked.

My name is Pierre-Brice Lebrun.

I'm an author and I've written a book about Camembert.

Patrick Mercier: A Camembert from Normandy is made from raw milk, which we partially skim.

Otherwise the Camembert becomes too liquid.

This is the most importan moment in traditional Camembert production.

Camembert is made from raw milk and scooped by hand with a ladle.

That's what makes it so special.

We ladle five times, 40 minutes apart.

One Camember consists of two liters of milk.

Today we're making 900 of them.

When that's finished, it's time to wait.

The next day we salt the cheese.

Without the salt, the typical white mold ring can't grow on the Camembert.

Then it goe into the first ripening chamber.

The ripening chambe has something magical about it.

Here you forget all your worries because you can smell th special scent, which is amazing.

If you like Camembert.

Patrick Mercier: After 14 days, we put the cheese in a wooden box and we keep it here for another week until it has finished ripening.

Pierre-Brice Lebrun: The box was crucial to the success of Camembert.

It made it easier to transport.

It arrived in Paris by train and it was eaten there in the Elysée Palace by Emperor Napoleon III.

Camembert should be kept in the fridge as little as possible, if at all.

It's best kept in a dark, cool place.

Take it out an hour before you want to eat it.

Camembert is best eaten with bread.

And with cider from the same region.

When I eat camembert I see the cows in front of me.

I smell them.

You close your eyes.

And you're in Normandy.

Patrick Mercier: A day goes b when I dont eat my own cheese.