Cette maison

"Tessa was born in Stamford in 1994 and died in Bridgeport in 2008; her death tore open the present, changed the course of the past, snatched away a future. Such a loss may be impossible to grasp, but Cette maison suggests it can perhaps be encircled, by following the lines traced by all three temporalities, rippling together around the gaping void. The future that did not happen takes the lead here, with Tessa seen as the young woman she never became, conducting oneiric conversations with her mother long after the event, watching over its wrenching aftermath and revisiting the stations of her family’s migration. Haiti, Canada and the US form another trio here, the seamless shifts through time in immaculate correspondence with the fluid movements through space. A tropical coastline and an island that seems to float on the horizon, rain-speckled car windows in Connecticut, referendum results in a Laval living room; everything leaves a trace on 16mm, even invention. It is enigmatic, and it is wrenching, and it will never stop, but there is comfort too. For what else can create such a perfectly limitless space for mourning but cinema? Everything is possible here."
(Berlinale)