A Sask. director's short film discussing the lives of one prairie francophone family is in the running for the Ruth Shaw Award at the Yorkton Film Festival this year.
Alexis Normand's 'French Enough' is a described as "a series of candid exchanges about belonging and bilingualism on the Prairies," according to the the film's description.
"It's the story of my family," said Normand in an interview with Yorkton This Week.
"I wrote and directed it, but I'm also in it with my family," said Normand, adding, "it shows how we transfer the French language and identity in a inter-generational way."
"My mom is Anglophone, my dad is Francophone, but really assimilated...[the film shows] how we managed to repatriate what was lost through assimilation over generations," said Normand.
"We see how our family functions together and the film shows some of the challenges that we've encountered and that my mom specifically encountered as an anglophone."
"Francophones weren't always...kind to families like ours," said Normand, "when you have families where parents are from different cultural backgrounds it's called an exogamous family."
"Back then it wasn't quite as common for family structures like mine to be seen within Francophone communities whereas now it's a lot more common," said Normand, adding, the film "talks about my family and the French language and identity and how we transfer that sense of belonging and that identity from one generation to the next despite living in a place where there's not very much French to begin with and especially within out own family structure."
Normand, who is relatively new to film-making, is not stranger to arts and education.
"I have a degrees in music and education and I've been a songwriter for over 10 years," said Normand.
Normand toured as a solo Francophone artist but also as a member of Rosie and the Riveters, a trio of musicians that toured internationally across Canada, the US and Europe.
"I discovered film-making in 2018," said Normand, "it changed my life."
"Film-making offers a lot more as a medium for different things compared to song-writing and recording albums and touring," said Norman, noting, "when I had made my first student film in 2018 I felt that freedom that sub-titles offered."
The appeal for Normand as a bi-lingual speaker was being able to express herself in both languages at the same time, describing it as "something that's much more close to my reality as a Francophone speaker in Sask."
Normand said the visual story-telling component was also appealing.
With song-writing she could "describe a lot of things and people could conjure up images in their mind, but being able to show somebody something as opposed to describing it are two very different things."
The film was shot over the course of three days at Waka Lake, a regional park roughly 100 KM north-east of Saskatoon.
"Because my family is in it, I wanted to make sure they felt comfortable and I also wanted to show how we function in both languages and the best place for me to show that is where we spend our summers together," said Normand.
Normand said her francophone family spent many summers at Waka Lake.
"I grew up spending all my summers at the lake and walking down the lanes to visit an aunt or walking a little further to visit someone else...there was always cousins around, so that kind of tradition sort of continues in our family except we all kind of share this one tiny little cottage."
"Part of the visual storytelling was not just being able to show how language and identity are these important part of our lives that we are transferring from one generation to another, but also the space," said Normand, "there was already a lot of links between past and present and moving forward that I could draw upon and it just made sense emotionally for that space to hold the conversation."
"The film is mostly a conversation about Francophone identity," said Normand, "it's the very first time that my family ever talked about it...we had quite a lot to say to eachother in that first iteration of how it all came together."
Normand said she was surprised at hearing the news of her nomination for the Ruth Shaw Award.
"What a surprise — first of all — was not expecting that...super huge honour, too."
"It's interesting for me to discover the legacy of film in Sask. through the YFF," said Normand, "it feels like a big honour to me."
To add to the nomination for the Ruth Shaw Award, Normand said the film won Best Franco-Canadian film at the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, a film festival held in Montreal.
"That was unexpected as well," said Normand.
"When I made the film my intention was for it to be mostly for French-speaking people outside of Quebec — there's a million of us who kind of identify in one way or another to my family's story — those are the people I thought would be interested in this film."
"To win in Quebec — I didn't think they would ever be interested at all — I'm pretty grateful."
The Yorkton Film Festival takes place May 25–27.
