The Kettle is a story of revolt and resilience. Héloïse Bargain courageously recounts the especially violent assault that she experienced. But rather than victimizing herself further, she chose to parry with biting eloquence and humour.

The short film was designed and created as part of the Images et Voix (“Images and Voices”) workshop from the 2020 edition of the INIS (Institut National de l’Image et du Son) documentary program. Whatever their subject matter, documentary filmmakers must always appeal to sincerity in their film subjects, begging the question: how can we ask another person to “bare it all” for the camera if we have never taken that same risk ourselves? This exercise asked aspiring filmmakers to write a highly personal story to be used as the audio track for a film. Once completed, each story was read in studio by its author. Students were not allowed to film new footage for their film and would have to use randomly assigned footage from the NFB archives. They were, however, allowed to use their personal archives (family photos and home movies, for example, or footage they had shot before starting at INIS).

Michel Langlois
Filmmaker and Instructor at l'INIS