Looking For Cheyenne is a tale of tender connections in an unimaginative political time.

Sonia works at a high school on the industrial outskirts of Paris. Her lover, a talented journalist, has been unable to find work in over a year. Penniless and principled, Cheyenne decides to leave the system entirely and live as a gleaner, as best she can, in the French countryside. It is winter. Sonia briefly dallies with Beatrice, a B-movie horror fan with leopard print sheets. She also beds a charming idealist whom we shall call ‘Leaflet Man’. However it is Cheyenne that Sonia loves and she must find her.

This film is full of grace and humanity and absurdist triumphs. Its central message celebrates intuitive acts, living, loving and finding your own way in the face of adversity.

Valerie Minetto adroitly crafts an ambience of suspense that carried me to the end. A vibrating string or plucked high notes accompanies the action. This audio texture mirrors a scene when Sonia demonstrates to her earnest and attentive class how sound waves work.

Cheyenne’s hard but pure existence in the countryside reminded me of Agnes Varda’s ‘The Gleaners’. There are some Woody Allen touches when characters that should be separated by walls are permitted right of reply.

Sexy Thing by Denie Pentecost is a sweltering film about a young girl finding connection with a luminous performance given by Hana Mangan-Lawrence.