Le temps et le lieu

Documentary, 16mm, 50 mins., colour, 1999, Québec, Canada, French

In 1936, the American anthropologist, Horace Miner spent a year in the village of Saint-Denis-de-Kamouraska with his young wife, Agnes, to observe the traditional life of the French-Canadian farmers. He later published St. Denis, a French-Canadian Parish, a book that became a sociology classic in Québec.

Sixty years after Miner's stay, a filmmaker follows the athropologist's footsteps, looking for traces of what he had seen. Behind the modern village and mechanized farms lies the old Saint-Denis, which we discover through Miner's notes, photographs and correspondence, but also in the curve of a roof or the layout of fields, by observing family life or listening to the older villagers. In Saint-Denis, nothing's the same any more. But there are a thousand vestigial links with the past, and sometimes we can still taste the flavour of the things that endure.

Director of Photography :
Jean-Claude Labrecque
Editor : Louise Côté
Music : Silvy Grenier
Sound : Marcel Chouinard, Martin Allard, Hugo Brochu

Written and directed by : Bernard Émond

Producer : Lorraine Dufour
Production : Coop Vidéo de Montréal
Distributor : Les Films du 3 mars