After the Montreal Massacre
1990 · 27m · Canada
Directed by Gerry Rogers
Genres: documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative, dark
Survivor Sylvie Gagnon recalls the 1989 École Polytechnique shooting that killed fourteen women. The account connects the massacre to broader misogyny and violence.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects a massacre doc to be cathartic or accusatory—Rogers does neither, which is why most people miss what she's actually doing: she's let testimony *become* form itself, refusing the comfort of a clean narrative arc about violence and its causes.
A rigorously constructed oral history that positions survivor testimony as both document and medium; Rogers' editing discipline—the silences, the structural repetition—places this firmly in a lineage of feminist documentary practice that treats form as moral argument.
The choice to let Sylvie's voice anchor the entire 27 minutes without visual spectacle or archival padding is gutsy, but it's the sound design—how Rogers holds ambient quiet between recollections—that transforms personal testimony into something that feels both intimate and historical.