Tales of Ordinary Fatphobia
2019 · 24m · Canada
Directed by Josiane Blanc
Genres: coming-of-age, documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Through poetic illustration and personal testimony from adolescent girls, this film examines fatphobia, weight-based bullying and discrimination, and their psychological effects.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects the essay film about fatphobia to be angry or declarative, but Blanc refuses—she lets the girls' voices sit in melancholy instead, which is somehow more subversive than any rant could be.
This is essential work in the essay-documentary lineage, formally rigorous in its restraint: the poetic illustration doesn't sentimentalize, the testimony doesn't perform, and the editing honors both the political and the intimate with equal measure.
The crucial move here is Blanc's decision to let silence breathe between testimonies—that space where you hear the weight of what wasn't said becomes the film's most powerful argument.