Ste. Anne

Renée war vier Jahre weg, man weiß nicht wieso und wo. Ihre Tochter Athene wurde derweil von ihrem Bruder Modeste und dessen Frau großgezogen. Eine schwierige Situation, die noch schwieriger wird, als die zurückgekehrte Renée mit dem Plan aufwartet, gemeinsam mit der Tochter wegziehen zu wollen. Dies die Geschichte, um die die Form, unbekümmert um Stringenz, einen lyrisch-assoziativen Naturbilderschleier webt. Gedreht wurde STE. ANNE im „Treaty 1 Territory“, dem Kernland der Métis Nation. Und die Vergangenheit des Landes dringt in die Gegenwart der dort Lebenden in jeder der fragmentarisch flüchtigen, doch kostbar schillernden Einstellungen. (Alexandra Seitz)

Canadian Métis filmmaker Rhayne Vermette’s debut feature is a film about cultural dislocation as an everyday process. Centered on a family of Indigenous Francophones in rural Manitoba, STE. ANNE shows us a community rarely seen onscreen, and Vermette’s formal strategies, which often recall the physicality of Stan Brakhage, forge this paucity of representation into something palpable.
Renée has been gone for four years and suddenly wanders back to her hometown, and although nothing concrete is ever revealed, we understand that she was driven away by some shattering trauma. Renée’s young daughter Athene has been raised by Renée’s brother Modeste and his wife Elenore. Although the couple is willing to allow Renée back into Athene’s life, they are worried that she will vanish again, either with or without her daughter. As Renée reestablishes her relationship with Athene, she shows her daughter a photograph of an empty plot of land, a place she hopes to build a home. In its articulation of gender, trauma, and spiritual homelessness, STE. ANNE bears comparison to PARIS, TEXAS as well as Marilynne Robinson’s modern classic HOUSEKEEPING. But Vermette is primarily a visual thinker. Her rich, granular images depict the Métis Nation as a place of tremulous beauty. (Michael Sicinski)

Rhayne Vermette: R SEYMORE GOES NORTH (2011, K), TUDOR VILLAGE: A ONE SHOT DEAL (2012, K), ROB WHAT (2014, K), U.F.O. (2016, K), LES CHÂSSIS DE LOURDES (2016, K), DOMUS (2017, K)