
A Night Song
Félix Lamarche / 2022 / 44 min. / ENGLISH SUBS / Canada
Synopsis
Penetrating through the interstices of the half-closed shutters, a summer light brushes its dappled shadows in Noëlla's apartment, as she is preparing to receive medical aid in dying. She is assisted by her caregiver, Pierre, who looks after the daily necessities. Dense and diffuse, the last days of a life reveal the tight weave that intertwines these seemingly infinitely repeated gestures to the ephemeral nature of our passages.
Cast & Crew
Screenplay: Félix Lamarche
Cinematographer: Félix Lamarche
Editor: René Roberge
Sound: Félix Lamarche
Sound mix: Bruno Bélanger
Colorist: Jean-François Robichaud
Sound editor: Samuel Gagnon-Thibodeau
Production: La limite Films inc.
Genre
Topics
Trailer
Biography
Félix Lamarche is a Montreal-based independent filmmaker who explores the possibilities of documentary praxis. In 2017, he directed and produced his first feature documentary, Les terres lointaines, winner of the Pierre and Yolande Perrault Award. Since then, he has been working in both short and long format and is interested in classic and experimental approaches to film language.
Festivals
- 2022 -
In competition | Dok Leipzig, Allemagne
In competition | RIDM, Canada
With this film, I wanted to take a non-sentimental look at the last days of an "ordinary" life, that of Noëlla, with whom my grandfather had remarried. A widow for several years and stricken with an incurable cancer, she watches the last days of her life pass with a serenity and a calmness that forces admiration. An attitude that she would maintain until the last moments of her life. It is therefore a film about death itself, the kind that is almost never portrayed in films because it is not spectacular. It is the death of ordinary people, the death of everyday life, striking as much by its profound mystery as by its troubling banality. But it is also a film about an announced and planned death, which is administered by the State through medical aid in dying. This procedure, new in Canada, is still controversial. However, it is becoming a new reality that we will have to deal with and that confronts us all with ethical and philosophical questions. Around this issue, perhaps there is an opportunity to reflect on the place of death in our lives and on the troubled relationship we have with it in our society.