Skip to main content
This House film image, director Miryam Charles

This House

Cette maison

This event has passed

With its 16mm cinematography lending it an uncanny air, Miryam Charles’ haunting nonfiction work examines the mysterious circumstances surrounding her teenage cousin’s death, while speculating on the life that this young woman might’ve led had she survived. “My story is both tragic and hopeful,” incants cousin Tessa (brought to life by Schelby Jean-Baptiste). Through the graces of Charles’ direction, her tale is also equal measures puzzle and poetry. Transporting us between New England, Haiti, and Montreal, This House allows a speculative future incarnation of Tessa to commune with her bereaved mother (Florence Blain Mbaye) and retrace her family’s immigration odyssey.

“I refuse reality and try to understand it through art,” professes Charles in her director’s statement for her first feature-length work. While abstraction and experimental techniques are undeniably key to this enigmatic piece, there’s also a sense of anguish that serves as its emotional core. It’s a lyrical yet potent reminder of violence’s capacity to rupture reality and shake the foundations of family.

 

Silvestre Award for Best Feature Film, IndieLisboa 2022

 

Q&A Oct 1 & Oct 5

 

Presented by

Media Partner

Global BC Logo

Director
Cast

Schelby Jean-Baptiste, Florence Blain Mbaye, Eve Duranceau, Matthew Rankin, Yardly Kavanagh

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2022

Language

In French and Haitian Creole with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Self Harm

18+
75 min
Award Winners Documentary Experimental & Avant Garde Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Drop Dead City
Drop Dead City film image; someone holding a newspaper up in front of a brick wall

Drop Dead City

Dir. Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost
108 min

New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy and President Gerald Ford wants no part of it. Sanitation workers are on strike and cops are telling tourists it's not safe to visit. The town is going up in flames and they can't pay the firemen.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Boxcutter

Dir. Reza Dahya
88 min

The first feature from former Toronto Flow OTA Live host and producer Reza Dahya is a boisterous, sometimes bruising day-in-the-life of wannabe rapper Rome (Ashton James), set on meeting megastar Richie Hill (Rich Kidd).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Exterminating Angel: Live Scored by Magazinist

Dir. Luis Bunuel
95 min

Using crystal singing glasses, resonant bowls, pepper grinders and other sound objects, experimental music duo Magazinist perform a unique live score alongside Luis Buñuel's surrealist masterpiece about a dinner party which becomes an inescapable prison.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Gondola
Gondola film image; two women staring intently at one another sitting in a gondola

Gondola

Dir. Veit Helmer
85 min

In this whimsical comedy two cable car conductors fall in love as they criss cross a beautiful Georgian valley every half hour.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Life of Chuck

Dir. Mike Flanagan
111 min

The winner of the coveted Audience Award at TIFF last year, The Life of Chuck keeps us guessing about what it's up to and where it's going... Trust us, it's a keeper.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Hud

Dir. Martin Ritt
112 min

Landmark modern western with Brandon de Wilde from Shane worshipping the wrong hero, Paul Newman’s eponymous heel. According to Paul Schrader, this movie marks the birth of the cynical (anti-)hero in American cinema.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Félix Dufour-Laperrière

Screenwriter

Miryam Charles

Cinematography

Isabelle Stachtchenko, Miryam Charles

Editor

Xi Feng

Production Design

Georges Michael FanfanAnnick Marion

Original Music

Romain Camiolo

Director

Miryam Charles headshot, This House director

Miryam Charles

Miryam Charles is a Haitian-born director, producer, and cinematographer living in Montreal. She has produced several short and feature films, and directed several short films. Her films have been presented at various festivals in Quebec and internationally. This House, her feature film combining documentary and fiction elements, had its world premiere at the Berlinale this winter and won the Silvestre Award at the IndieLisboa.

Filmography: Mosaic (2017)