Here At Home: Not Chosen
2012 · 2m · Canada
Directed by Sarah Fortin
Genres: documentary, LGBTQ+
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Left behind as others gain housing, a man living with HIV walks the corridors of his shelter longing for a home of his own.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Two minutes of a man in a shelter corridor—sounds like the most predictable grief narrative, except Fortin refuses the expected catharsis, leaving us instead in the stillness of waiting, which is genuinely unsettling.
A formally restrained documentary that situates itself in the observational tradition while honoring the specificity of its subject; the minimal runtime becomes a compositional choice rather than a limitation.
What elevates this from footage into film is the decision to let negative space—the empty hallway, the unresolved longing—do the emotional work instead of testimony; that structural restraint transforms a 2-minute piece into something that lingers.