Une fois la poussière retombée (Once the Dust Has Settled)
2020 · 16m · Canada
Directed by Hervé Demers
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
A contemplative documentary portrait of Asbestos, a former Quebec mining town once home to the world's largest asbestos mine. Years after the mine's closure, residents reflect on their changing community and the open pit that serves as a constant reminder of their industrial past.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A town literally named Asbestos reflecting on its toxic past. The premise is so on-the-nose it's almost embarrassing; the question is whether Demers finds anything past the irony — patient cinema usually does.
A town literally named after asbestos confronting its own toxic legacy — Demers is working the patient observational mode of Robert Greene and the Anthropocene project, which is the right register. NOWNESS, Aeon, the curatorial circuit knows what it has.
Contemplative portrait of a town literally named Asbestos, built around the open pit — the location does most of the documentary's argumentative work, which is the right move for industrial-nostalgia material. 16 minutes, NOWNESS Portrait of a Place; the patience is the craft.
Reviews
Created with the aim of documenting the existence of a disappearing culture, this contemplative short offers a palpable sense of nostalgia that is integral to its impact.
Once the Dust Has Settled aligns with a trend toward contemplative filmmaking, offering a poignant testament to the enduring value of such storytelling.
Festivals
- Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival 2020
- Mecal International Short and Animation Film Festival
- Minimalen Short Film Festival
- Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
- DocsMX
- Festival REGARD
- International Film Festival of Ottawa 2021