frame[o]ut 2023: Cette Maison / This House

CA 2022, Fiction-Essay, 75 min., OV with english subtitles
Director: Miryam Charles
Starring: Schelby Jean-Baptiste, Florence Blain Mbaye, Eve Duranceau, Mireille Metéllus, Matthew Rankin, Yardly Kavanagh, Nadine Jean, Tracy Marcelin

Tessa, a teenager, is dead. What looks like a suicide turns out to be a murder, based on a true incident. For her mother and cousin, the loss of Tessa has left a deep wound. Their grief and the violence of having a loved one ripped from their lives takes them from the present to the past and future in their reflections. Haiti merges with the United States. Uprooting, loss, and anger over the trauma of colonization manifest in dreamed journeys. As a ghost, Tessa attends her own funeral, has conversations with her mother, and relives phases of her unlived life - as a rebellion against death, accompanied by the living's desire for reunification and reparation.

From Haitian descent, Miryam Charles is a Montreal based Canadian filmmaker. She studied cinema at Concordia University and has worked as a director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. Her short films include "Fly, Fly Sadness" (2015), "Towards the Colonies" (2016), "A Fortress" (2018), and "Three Atlas" (2018). Her works have been screened at various film festivals around the world. "Cette Maison" (2022) is her first feature film as a director. Charle’s work explores themes related to exile and the legacies of colonization.

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