Passages

They came together as strangers with a common goal: a 20-day hiking and rafting expedition from the foot of Mt. D'Iberville in the east along the Koroc River to Ungava Bay. In the summer of 2019, a group of five women landed bumpily on a gravel road near the border between Quebec and Labrador, took a deep breath and began an ambitious journey through Kuururjuaq Provincial Park... Co-directors Florence Pelletier and Caroline Côté assembled their team of women from across the province, bringing together people from Nunavik, Gaspé and Montreal for this adventure. Their documentary film ‘Passages’ (also: ‘Traversées’, in English: Passages) captures the challenging and gruelling journey in vivid images. The five women form a very heterogeneous group in terms of their origins, stages of life and the problems they carry with them. The joint expedition seems to them to be a way of dealing with their respective burdens, finding new perspectives and a new self-confidence. In a way, all the women are searching for their place in the world. ‘Passages’ deals with themes such as loneliness and loss, and also sheds light on the heritage and present of Canada's indigenous population. Images of Canada's untouched nature, but also of the extreme physical situations the women find themselves in during their sporting expedition, make the film a radical, deeply emotional experience.