Event

Maison du bonheur

Sat Apr 07: 7.15pm

Sofia Bohdanowicz
Canada
2017
1h 1m
Series - Future//Present: Canadas New Wave
Visiting Artist
** Director Sofia Bohdanowicz in attendance! **

About
VIFFs 2016 Emerging Canadian Director award recipient Sofia Bohdanowicz returns to directing with this lively documentary. Asked to make a film about her friends mother, a Parisian astrologer named Juliane, the director sets off for Montmartre and crafts a lovingly made portrait of an infectiously exuberant personality and the lovely pre-war apartment shes called home for 50 years.

Shooting on 16mm with a vibrant colour palette, Bohdanowicz imbues the simplest objects and activities with resonance and meaning. Juliane tells the story of falling for her late husband, and how he taught her how to read astrological charts in one charming scene she even gives the director a reading but mostly Bohdanowicz focuses on her subjects everyday life: how she spends her mornings, where she gets her hair and nails done, what she bakes and cooks and, most importantly, how those rituals connect her to family and tradition. Maison du bonheur is a sensitive look at how the meaning of life hides in plain sight amidst quotidian details, and it serves as a reminder that the way we construct our daily lives can itself be an art.