Travelling Distribution

Land of Cold

A film by

Hervé Demers

Synopsis

Immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa have chosen to start their lives over north of the 49th parallel. Here, in the vast expanses of Northern Canada, they reflect on the challenges and splendors of a season they’ve never yet experienced: winter.

Highlights

Tags

2025

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Documentary

Genre

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Country

Canada (Quebec)

Year

2025

Length

16'52"

Themes

Immigration

Ethnography

With
‍Afoudah Olaniran Apollinaire Cyr Loïc, Ankemah Cynthia De Adjoh, Guiro Abiba Somnoma Nadège , Fapa Nanfack Rodrigue , Thioube Yamar Mamadou

Production
Hervé Demers Images

Screenplay
Hervé Demers

Cinematography
Vincent Biron

Editing
Hervé Demers

Sound Design
Simon Bellefleur, Olivier Calvert, Geoffrey Mitchell

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Director's statement

In cinema, conversations about diversity often unfold through the prism of urban life through the challenges of coexistence amid difference. But what of the diversity of the imagination itself, those worlds born from the lived experience of the land and of nature? How can we tell, in cinematic terms, the profound relationship between a people and their geography?This is where the heart of my project lies: an attempt to better understand and to share the experience of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa who have chosen to make their lives in a radically northern landscape.The contrast could hardly be greater. The tropical climate of Africa, with its almost imperceptible shifts in temperature, stands in stark opposition to that of Northern Quebec, where the weather is defined by dramatic and sweeping extremes. The Jamésie is, in essence, a land of seasons, seasonality being the very heartbeat of northernness.From this geographical dissonance, my documentary film will weave a poetic reflection on the intimate impacts of uprooting, tracing the singular journeys of sub-Saharan African immigrants who now live in the North. Cinema will serve here as a shared space for reflection for exploring, together, the beliefs and aspirations that endure, or quietly fade, as generations pass; when a family leaves its native soil, its culture, its community, to take root elsewhere in the hope of brighter days.Ultimately, this project is a search for deeper insight into the ways we experience nature and place through the lens of the cultural imagination we inherit.

Hervé Demers

Hervé Demers

Hervé Demers is a French Canadian filmmaker and photographer. His award-winning films were selected by over a hundred international competitions and festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand (France), Mecal (Spain) and Hot Docs (Canada). Retrospectives of his body of work were presented in Morocco, Ukraine and South Korea. He was a jury of numerous film festivals, including the 35th edition of the Busan International Short Film Festival (BISFF).

Filmography

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Festivals

Festival du nouveau cinéma, Canada | 2025 * People’s Choice Award
FICFA, Canada | 2025

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