Ste. Anne

Renée has returned, moving back into the rural family home her brother Modeste now shares with his wife; they’ve brought up Renée’s daughter Athene as their own. Athene tries to grasp the new set-up, but her mother’s mind is already elsewhere, the empty lot in Sainte Anne, Manitoba on the photo she shows Athene. But the plot always vies with the other impressions and fragments around it, of the Treaty 1 territory, of life in the Métis Nation, to which Renée’s family belong, as do the director’s family who play them, she herself in the role of Renée. In the flickering celluloid, colours fluctuate, motion slackens, dreams bleed into reality and past and present merge. (JL)