Unfamiliar Fields

Drifting between moving-image formats and collaging local textures and bygone voices, Oscar Ruiz Navia’s film reflects on loss and mourning as experiences of temporal dislocation.

In the heart of the Haute-Gatineau forest at the height of hunting season, humans and animals cross paths and search for each other.

One summer, many years after his mother confided in him about her emotional difficulties with his father, a filmmaker questions his parents, curious about the state of their relationship. At first glance, their situation does not seem to have changed. Curious, he decides to inquire about it. Their activities and discussions both revive nostalgic and fearful emotions. He sees that his mother does not feel the same. From this moment that he realizes the magnitude of the subject and that some things are not accessible to him.

With inspirational imagery, Charles Hervieux-Rock recounts a friend’s experience to illustrate the importance of forgiveness and the need to avoid resentment, the thief of peace.

When a mild-mannered English professor, John Dykstra, faces a challenge that shakes him to his core, he has to make a choice - leave an innocent woman to die, or summon his alter-ego, the hardboiled mystery writer Rick Hardin to save her.

In the form of a poetic love letter to its nation, this short film reveals a strong community and the anchoring of the new generation in this rich culture.