One the fringes of mainstream society, the gleaners range from those in poverty to those hoping to recreate the community activity of centuries past, and others who use whatever they find to cobble together a rough art. They collect everything from leftover harvest, to rubbish from bins, to oysters washed up after a storm.

Varda likens her filmmaking to the gleaning of ideas and images from interior and exterior journeys and admits to being a gleaner herself, which gives her a special connection with her subjects in this honest and intriguing documentary.