Tënk honors the work of Miryam Charles, director, producer and cinematographer living in Montreal, as part of the Through Our Lens project devoted to the Quebec documentary scene.

By superimposing visual and sound materials, the films of Myriam Charles invite us, by their poetic and dreamlike character, to question reality.

The elaboration of a rich sound and narrative universe, to which the images are then grafted, is central to her work: "I can better conceive a place, a state of mind through sound and then the image comes more naturally". The filmmaker explains her attachment, and more broadly the way in which she apprehends orality and sound in her films, by her personal experience: "I would say that the primary element is the family, the moments spent laughing, crying, and then questioning the stories we were watching.'' Miryam Charles captures reality without trying to stage it, films scenes of life and travel and then stores her reels until a way to animate them naturally comes to her: "they can stay there for several years until I have the idea of a story to tell.'' From this creative process emerges a particular relationship between image and sound: "it's like several elements of various realities put together to create an experimental fiction". Her narration refuses the linearity of description, rhythms, then diverts the textured images of hier16mm film and questions, by extension, reality. This process transcends the intimacy of the narratives delivered in her films and attributes a universal dimension to her work.

Beyond the "distant shots" of natural and urban landscapes and scenes of life that characterize her films and allow, according to Miryam Charles, to "better reflect on what we are watching", the theme of language and orality is transversal to the selection of short films offered. It is indeed question of a loss of voice affecting all the inhabitants of an island in Fly, Fly Sorrow, of an interrogation complicated by language barriers in Three Atlas or of a song recited by a young woman remembering her childhood in Song for the New World. Towards the Colonies differs slightly from the others, since it is the sounds of the sea and navigation that accompany the story, this time written, related to the death and repatriation of a young girl off the Venezuelan coast.

Now let's make room for the filmmaker's work. Enjoy exploring the work of Miryam Charles!

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