It is the first of Perrault's Isle-aux-Coudres Trilogy: Le règne du jour (The Times That Are) followed in 1967, Les voitures d'eau (The River Schooners) in 1968.

For centuries the inhabitants of Ile-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River, trapped beluga whales by sinking a weir of saplings into the offshore mud at low tide.

In 1962, a team of National Film Board of Canada filmmakers led by director Perrault and cinematographer Brault arrived on the island to make a cinéma-vérité documentary about the people and their isolated life.

[7] The film is commonly referred to simply as Pour la suite du monde in both French and English.

Pour la suite du monde has been consistently ranked by critics as one of the best ever made and it represents a major development in the direct cinema movement, moving away from simple observation to a more immediate participation and a great emphasis on the words of the people portrayed.