this river
2016 · 19m · Canada
Directed by Erika MacPherson, Katherena Vermette
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
An Indigenous documentary pairs activist Kyle Kematch and writer Katherena Vermette, who have each searched for a disappeared loved one, as they share their experiences of loss, resilience and activism.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a documentary about grief and activism—sounds earnest, sounds expected—except MacPherson and Vermette refuse the triumphalist arc entirely, letting absence breathe instead of resolving it, which means the film sits in actual discomfort rather than performing it.
Two artists in conversation about loss, positioned within a clear lineage of Indigenous documentary practice and intimate portraiture; the restraint of the 19-minute form becomes its own formal argument about what can't be rushed or resolved.
The decision to make Vermette both subject and co-director collapses the distance between witness and witnessed, and that doubled perspective—writer and activist seeing each other's search—is what transforms personal testimony into something that actually holds.