This Is Where I Sleep - Anselme
2013 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Annick De Vries, Ernest Godin, Eza Paventi
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender
In Brittany, young Anselme walks the seashore gathering driftwood and washed-up objects to turn into art, and spends his free time around the sea that he knows well, even sailing his own boat.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A five-minute ode to a kid collecting driftwood by the sea—sounds like the most predictable documentary premise imaginable, and it kind of is, which is precisely why everyone else will sleep on it while I'm baffled Margot saw something here.
De Vries, Godin, and Paventi compose a small masterpiece in constraint: the essay film tradition of patient observation meets the formal precision of cinema verité, where every held frame and cut between object and gesture becomes a meditation on making meaning from the mundane.
The decision to let Anselme's hands and the collected objects breathe in near-silence, trusting tactile gesture over voice-over narration, transforms what could've been a earnest afterschool special into something that actually *feels* like the salt air and solitude of a young artist's practice.