This Is Where I Sleep - Zazakely
2013 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Annick De Vries, Ernest Godin, Eza Paventi
Genres: documentary, family
At an orphanage in Madagascar founded by a French woman, around fifty children aged one to seventeen invent their own games and make toys, showing imagination and solidarity when not at school.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Expected a sentimental orphanage doc, got something weirder—watching kids literally construct play from nothing, turning scrap into agency, is almost subversive in how it refuses the savior narrative. The French founder barely registers; the children's ingenuity does all the work.
A formally modest film that situates itself in the observational documentary tradition, yet the editing rhythm—the way it lets invented games breathe without commentary—suggests careful attention to pacing over earnestness. Restraint is the craft here.
The decision to let the camera rest on the children's hands making toys, rather than cutting between faces and objects, transforms what could have been a patronizing portrait into proof that constraint breeds invention; five minutes of pure evidence that limitation is creative fuel.