Family self-portraits, navigating the gap
The films in this program present cinema as a means to explore the distances—whether cultural, geographical, or generational—that sometimes develop between family members. While the camera acts as a witness to these gaps, it also works in each chosen film to encourage human connection, reweave bonds, and solidify the cultural grounding of our complex and multifaceted identities. Thus, cinema here is both an observer of estrangement and a reparative agent, transforming into a means of bridging the gap, of filling the void. Through unique narrative and aesthetic approaches, the filmmakers of these 5 documentaries explore the artistic and narrative possibilities of cinema in their own ways, embodying the personal quest that each one undertakes.
In The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman, a personal film where the collective resonates as a sensitive tribute to Cameroonian women, Rosine Mbakam consolidates and renews her familial and cultural roots that she wishes to pass on to her son. Then, transporting us into a fragmented memory, both in terms of formats and sources, the inventive hybrid film Damascus Dreams reduces the distance between the filmmaker and her father born in Syria. To bridge a gap and bear witness to an abyss—that of the collective suffering and of the erased generation—Chantal Akerman, with Dis-moi, resurrects through spoken word the stories of women who survived the Holocaust, with her grandmother as a backdrop, like a ghost of survival. The grandmother is also a central figure in Jacquelyn Mills' debut feature In the Waves, where the documentarian portrays her in a love letter, a farewell letter, weaving a tribute to intergenerational affection, to the distance of age that separates but never dilutes tenderness. In Fuku Nashi, the identity quest of filmmaker Juli Sando merges reality and (auto)fiction in a kind of unifying closed world with her grandmother.
Beyond the diverse artistic approaches of the films in this program, the documentary process reveals itself as both a unique and collective endeavor, affirming that through cinema, the personal becomes political, and the specific can truly open up to the universal.
Hubert Sabino-Brunette and Charlotte Lehoux
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Dis-moi
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Echoing her own mother's voice recounting her relationships with her mother and grandmother, filmmaker Chantal Akerman visits three elderly Jewish women and asks them to speak about their ancestors. Seated in their living rooms and filmed in static shots, these grandmothers share their memories, the life of Jewish communities before the war, the Holocaust, and the efforts to survive the horror....
Fuku Nashi
After several years of absence Yukie returns to Baba's house in search of her identity. In this house of a thousand corners, these two lonely souls meet, but a great chasm separates them. Little by little, between the murmur of the television and the abandoned garden, tongues are loosened and the distance decreases.
Damascus Dreams
How does one remember a homeland they are so deeply connected to and disconnected from? When Canadian-born filmmaker Emilie Serri travels to Syria for the first time in ten years, she feels alienated. A year later, when her grandmother dies and the war begins, she tries to piece back together an image of this elusive country she desperately wants to call her own. Gathering evidence from the pas...
The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman
The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman
Duration: 2h32This film tells the story of a young woman's return to her homeland, Cameroon, and the reunion with her mother, centered around revisiting spaces that have shaped both their lives. Their different journeys intersect around the traditions that form their identities. The film is a face-to-face encounter that confronts and questions the choices of these two women. It portrays two generations obser...
In the Waves
Subscription access
_In the Waves_ is an expressive documentary that depicts the life of 80 years old Joan Alma Mills in her aging coastal village. Following the death of her younger sister, Joan finds herself confronted by the fragility of life. As she tries to come to terms with her loss Joan searches for meaning in the natural world around her. Weaving intimate thoughts with lyrical imagery, _In the Waves_ was ...
Dis-moi
Subscription access
Echoing her own mother's voice recounting her relationships with her mother and grandmother, filmmaker Chantal Akerman visits three elderly Jewish women and asks them to speak about their ancestors. Seated in their living rooms and filmed in static shots, these grandmothers share their memories, the life of Jewish communities before the war, the Holocaust, and the efforts to survive the horror....
Fuku Nashi
After several years of absence Yukie returns to Baba's house in search of her identity. In this house of a thousand corners, these two lonely souls meet, but a great chasm separates them. Little by little, between the murmur of the television and the abandoned garden, tongues are loosened and the distance decreases.
Damascus Dreams
How does one remember a homeland they are so deeply connected to and disconnected from? When Canadian-born filmmaker Emilie Serri travels to Syria for the first time in ten years, she feels alienated. A year later, when her grandmother dies and the war begins, she tries to piece back together an image of this elusive country she desperately wants to call her own. Gathering evidence from the pas...
The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman
The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman
Duration: 2h32This film tells the story of a young woman's return to her homeland, Cameroon, and the reunion with her mother, centered around revisiting spaces that have shaped both their lives. Their different journeys intersect around the traditions that form their identities. The film is a face-to-face encounter that confronts and questions the choices of these two women. It portrays two generations obser...
In the Waves
Subscription access
_In the Waves_ is an expressive documentary that depicts the life of 80 years old Joan Alma Mills in her aging coastal village. Following the death of her younger sister, Joan finds herself confronted by the fragility of life. As she tries to come to terms with her loss Joan searches for meaning in the natural world around her. Weaving intimate thoughts with lyrical imagery, _In the Waves_ was ...
