300 kilometres southwest of Halifax lies Sable Island, a crescent moon-shaped sliver of land that seems to have manifested from a fable. Naturalist/researcher Zoe Lucas has called Sable home for four decades, sharing the land with roaming wild horses, fluttering sparrows, and practically imperceptible invertebrates. Joining Lucas for a residency, Jacquelyn Mills, a one-person film team, fully immerses us in the natural wonders of this stunning ecosystem while allowing us to witness an uncommon friendship unfold.
Winner of multiple awards at the Berlinale and Hot Docs, the captivating Geographies of Solitude is one of the year’s most celebrated, accomplished, and innovative documentaries. Utilizing techniques like exposing her 16mm film stock to starlight and hand-processing footage in seaweed, Mills also employs homemade microphones and electrodes to elicit melodies from the island and its animal inhabitants. Sable isn’t so much captured on film as incorporated into the very fabric of this documentary. This is a cinematic experience unlike anything you’ve ever encountered.
Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award, Hot Docs 2022
Canada
2022
English
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Other Side of Hope
Khaled, a Syrian (Sherwan Haji), washes up on Finland's glum shores and becomes an unlikely friend to a middle-aged Finnish shirt salesman (Sakari Kuosmanen) in the midst of remaking his life. Compassionate and wryly funny by turns.
Silent Friend
In this entrancing reverie from On Body and Soul director Ildikó Enyedi, we are invited to contemplate several human specimens from the vantage point of a mighty Ginkgo biloba tree on the grounds of a German university.
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.
Miles Davis 100! Elevator to the Gallows + Julian Borkowski
24-year-old Louis Malle came out of the gate with this cool noir about a perfect murder that goes horribly wrong. A man (Maurice Ronet) kills his boss in his office, only to get stuck in the lift... Meanwhile his lover (Jeanne Moreau) is going frantic.
Credits
Executive Producer
Brad Mills
Producer
Rosalie Chicoine Perreault, Jacquelyn Mills
Cinematography
Jacquelyn Mills
Editor
Jacquelyn Mills
Director
Photo by John Ratchford
Jacquelyn Mills
Jacquelyn Mills is a filmmaker from Cape Breton Island, and is based in Montreal. Her works are immersive and sensorial, often exploring an intimate and lyrical connection to the natural world. Her film In The Waves (2017) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the New Hampshire Film Festival, Best Medium-Length Documentary at the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), and Best Documentary and Best Editing at the Atlantic International Film Festival. Her most recent work, Geographies of Solitude (2022), had its world premiere at the Berlinale Forum.