This Is Where I Sleep - Maïssanne
2013 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Annick De Vries, Ernest Godin, Eza Paventi
Genres: coming-of-age, documentary, family
Tones: contemplative, tender
On Mayotte in the Comoros, Maïssanne lives with her extended family and throws herself into sports and dancing, dreaming of one day teaching ballet.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A perfectly well-behaved documentary about a girl who wants to dance — exactly the kind of earnest, feel-good coming-of-age story that makes programmers feel virtuous and leaves no one arguing about anything.
Three directors collaborate on a formally restrained portrait of aspiration and place, letting the rhythms of daily life and Maïssanne's own movement vocabulary carry the emotional weight—a piece that trusts observation over intervention.
The decision to let Maïssanne's physicality—her actual dancing and athletic play—do the narrative heavy lifting rather than rely on interview or voiceover is what transforms this from a routine profile into something that breathes; the camera simply follows the energy already in the frame.