This Is Where I Sleep - Selma
2013 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Annick De Vries, Ernest Godin, Eza Paventi
Genres: documentary, family
Tones: contemplative, tender
In Vancouver, Selma grows up in a French and Argentinian household where several languages are spoken, and stays active outdoors as a keen tennis and table tennis player.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A five-minute NFB doc about a kid's multilingual upbringing and tennis hobby sounds like the kind of wholesome family content that puts me to sleep—and it probably does exactly what it sets out to do, which is precisely why I'm not touching it.
De Vries, Godin, and Paventi work within the observational documentary tradition with clear intentionality, letting the texture of a bilingual childhood emerge through accumulated domestic detail rather than intervention—a formally restrained approach that respects both subject and form.
What makes this breathe is the decision to let Selma's multilingualism *sound* rather than explain it—the casual code-switching in dialogue becomes the film's spine, a single formal choice that transforms a slice-of-life premise into something about identity that feels lived rather than documented.