Waiting to bloom…
La Famille
Logline: Seven generations of Cajun women settle a new land and fight against fate for a life that is their own.
La Famille is a bi-lingual (English/Cajun French) historical drama limited series with one-hour episodes each meant to be presented in two volumes of 4 episodes each. It is comparable in tone to The Avonlea Series, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, and How To Make An American Quilt.
Episode 1 Synopsis: La Famille starts at Dawn’s 60th birthday party. Her younger daughter, Samantha, is again at odds with her siblings and not wanting to talk to any of her family members. Dawn sees that she is unhappy so she begins the stories of the women of her family to show Samantha that she is loved and a part of the family.
The first story is about Dawn’s paternal sixth-great grandmother, Laurette, and her relationship with Acadian woman Madame Richard. Laurette, a wealthy French Huguenot, goes with Madame Richard when she and her family are exiled in La Grande Dérangement. They all end up in Louisiana eventually, where Laurette has a tumultuous marriage to Jean-Claude Devereaux, a man from Quebec.
Episode 2 Synopsis: The story of our series continues when Dawn is inspired to tell Samantha about Kattie, her grandmother, after reminiscing about growing up on the bayou.
We switch to Dawn’s mother’s side of the family in recounting the experiences of her grandmother, Kattie, from the end of the Civil War onwards. Kattie’s mother is extremely abusive and makes her the sole caretaker and breadwinner of her family. Her father died 5 years before. Eventually, Kattie marries the kind Jacques Charpentier and they have 9 children, the youngest of whom is Thérèse, Dawn’s mother, to whom Kattie gives birth at the age of 50.
Episode 3 Synopsis: Dawn continues the story of her family with that of her mother, Thérèse, beginning with the wedding dress Thérèse wore in 1926.
Thérèse is the youngest child of Kattie and Jacques, born into a new modern era her parents can’t even understand. After initial rejection, she finds her place in school and indulges her dream of becoming a teacher and marrying her best friend, Jean-Claude Devereaux (the second!). However, Thérèse’s dream of teaching abruptly ends when old traditions clash with the new and she’ll have to shatter the class and culture barrier to win the heart of the boy she loves.
Cactus Flower Pictures 