The Short Films of Miryam Charles / CETTE MAISON

ABOUT THE FILMS :

“Fly, Fly Sadness,” 2015, Dir. Miryam Charles, 6 Mins, La Distributrice, Canada/Haiti

In French with English subtitles.

Following a nuclear explosion that transforms the voice of all the inhabitants of an island, a Finnish journalist goes there in order to find a hermit with mysterious powers.

FORMAT: DCP

“Towards the Colonies,” 2016, Dir. Miryam Charles, 5 Mins, La Distributrice, Canada/Haiti

In French with English subtitles.

When a young girl is found off the Venezuelan coast, a medical examiner will try to determine the cause of death before the body is repatriated.

FORMAT: DCP

“A Fortress,” 2018, Dir. Miryam Charles, 6 Mins, La Distributrice, Canada/Haiti

In French with English subtitles.

‍After the death of their adoptive daughter a couple goes to Haiti looking for her relatives. There, they meet with a DNA specialist who might have the power of resurrection.

FORMAT: DCP

“Song for the New World,” 2021, Dir. Miryam Charles, 9 Mins, La Distributrice, Canada

Years after the disappearance of her father in Scotland, a young woman recalls her childhood on a Caribbean island.

FORMAT: DCP

“Cette Maison,” 2024, Dir. Miryam Charles, 10 Mins, Embuscade Films, Canada/Haiti

In French and Haitian Creole with English subtitles.

In this dreamlike film, Miryam Charles explores the depths of grief, exile and familial memory. Through the story of a young murdered girl, she evokes the invisible but palpable presence of spirits and ancestors in a Haitian diaspora family living between Canada and the United States. Ethereal, superimposed images unfold across Haitian landscapes, which, despite the ambient heat, appear to be bathed in a cold light. The funeral march emerges as a distant voice, a ballad, and a song from beyond the grave that combines nature, the sea, love and life after death.

FORMAT: DCP

CETTE MAISON, 2022, Dir. Miryam Charles, 75 Mins, Oyster Films, Canada

In French and Haitian Creole with English subtitles.

Bridgeport, 2008. A teenage girl is found hanged in her room. While everything points to suicide, the autopsy report reveals something else. Ten years later, the director and cousin of the teenager examines the past causes and future consequences of this unsolved crime. Like an imagined biography, the film explores the relationship between the security of the living space and the violence that can jeopardise it.

FORMAT: DCP

“I created a short version of CETTE MAISON for the Palais de Tokyo, primarily focused on sound. I reworked the soundtrack and created a different sonic journey. In the feature-length version of the film, the sound begins with wind from the village where my cousin’s mother was born, and it ends with the same wind sounds (even if it is very subtle, since the scene was shot in a studio). For me, it was a return to the mother’s and daughter’s home. An impossible return. In the short version, with the sound, we begin in the same village in Haiti where my aunt was born, and we end in the neighborhood where my cousin passed away. In this short version of the film, there is no dialogue. What we hear are three songs: one traditional song and two that I composed.” — Miryam Charles