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Geographies of Solitude film image, director Jacquelyn Mills

Geographies of Solitude

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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

Director
Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2022

Language

English

Film Contact
Links
18+
103 min
Award Winners Documentary Experimental & Avant Garde Women Directors

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Credits

Executive Producer

Brad Mills

Producer

Rosalie Chicoine Perreault, Jacquelyn Mills

Cinematography

Jacquelyn Mills

Editor

Jacquelyn Mills

Director

Jacquelyn Mills headshot, Geographies of Solitude 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.