This Is Where I Sleep - Zoé
2013 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Annick De Vries, Ernest Godin, Eza Paventi
Genres: coming-of-age, documentary, family
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
In Brooklyn, creative Zoé fills her days with activities and leads her younger brothers on imaginary adventures, showing the makings of an artist.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A five-minute NFB doc about a Brooklyn kid's imaginary games sounds like the definition of safe institutional filmmaking, but the trio of directors trusts the camera to sit still and watch—refusing to sentimentalize or over-explain—which is its own kind of small rebellion.
The formal restraint here—observational, unhurried—places it in the lineage of direct cinema, and the decision to let Zoé's creative play unfold without voiceover or constructed narrative arc shows real curatorial confidence in the viewer's intelligence.
The filmmaking choice that makes this work is the refusal to cut away: three directors holding on unstructured moments of a kid building a world, which somehow transforms a modest premise into something that feels genuinely alive and irreplaceable.