So, Where Do We Fit In?
2008 · 24m · Canada
Directed by Andréanne Germain
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: absurdist, provocative, whimsical
Franco-Ontarian filmmaker Andréanne Germain sends two unsuspecting Quebec volunteers carrying oversized Franco-Ontarian flags across Quebec City during Saint-Jean-Baptiste festivities, prompting conversations about where French-speaking Ontarians belong within Canada.
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Germain plants a flag—literally—in the middle of Quebec's most sacred day and watches people squirm with the absurdity of it; this is the kind of provocation that masquerades as whimsy but actually asks an uncomfortable question nobody wants to answer, which is exactly why it works.
The film sits thoughtfully within the essay-documentary tradition, leveraging the Saint-Jean-Baptiste setting as both historical anchor and formal constraint; the restraint in not over-narrating the volunteers' experience shows considerable craft awareness of how to let constructed situations speak.
The decision to use oversized flags as the intervention—unwieldy, impossible to ignore, almost comedic in their proportionality—transforms what could be a dry civics lesson into something that physically embodies the awkwardness of the question itself.