Camp d'été

(Summer Camp, Matteo Ybarra, Switzerland, 2025)

Today, many people’s experience of the international Scout Movement is confined to a viewing of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012). In Switzerland, however, scouting is not a nostalgic fantasy but a vibrant social reality.

Mateo Ybarra’s documentary takes us inside an extraordinary annual gathering: thousands of teenagers are gathered to live together within a makeshift village in a Swiss valley for a fortnight.

Their activities embody the noble principles of Scouting: teamwork, discipline, acquisition of diverse skills, physical health … and, above all, an idealism directed at raising young people’s awareness of ethical responsibility over both themselves and their environment.

Focusing on a select group of participants, Camp d’été avoids the pitfalls and clichés of Reality TV: it does not contrive sensational intrigues of erotic attraction or aggressive conflict, and nor does it seek out individual hero-figures.

Here, the experiences of community and collective work are primary. At a bubbly, briskly edited pace, Ybarra emphasises the daily routines of food preparation, exercise, group discussion, and singing at night around lamps and torches (because fires are forbidden!).

Everything leads to the final “night of reflection” in which the participants decide whether they will utter the Scout Promise in front of their peers. Camp d’été is a moving and joyful testament to (potentially) life-changing experience.

© Adrian Martin 17 October 2024