My Tribe Is My Life - Patrick, The Solitary Goth
2011 · 6m · Canada
Directed by Myriam Verreault
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender
Patrick, a solitary goth, comes alive at night interviewing others who identify as vampires, building his social world through shared online interests.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects goth subculture docs to be either mockumentary or earnest anthropology—Verreault finds a third gear by letting Patrick's nocturnal intimacy with strangers feel genuinely tender instead of weird, which is the truly subversive move.
The essay film tradition of intimate portraiture—from Vigo to Berliner—finds a measured continuation here in Verreault's restraint: she documents Patrick's nightly rituals and online confessions without irony or distance, positioning vulnerability itself as the formal subject.
The decision to let the camera sit with Patrick during these late-night interviews—never cutting to the people he's talking to, only his face receiving their words—transforms a profile into an act of witness that costs almost nothing to shoot but everything to sustain emotionally.