melanie saumure

i’m back in toronto since the end of august.

and i thought i should post something here.

i took a summer off, back in my hometown.

montreal is a great city during the summer. so much to do and to see.

hanging out in the parc lafontaine, spending a few hours at marché jean-talon or drinking a cappucino on the patio of café olympico are part of what i miss the most since i moved to toronto.

so it was good to be there, to rest, to take photographs, to spend time with my friends and to shoot part of my film. so far, i have 8 rolls of 100ft. nice black and white reversal film stock. i’ll start to edit soon.

i got my rushes this week. i can’t watch them yet since i want to avoid scratches. it’s the only print i have. so the box is sitting in my room. this is kind of cruel. but i am going to montreal next week and i’ll take the film with me. i’ll watch it on the bench at concordia with my teacher richard kerr.

i’ve been drawing a lot lately. not much is happening at school, so i am focusing on my thesis. the film is the only think i have on my mind right now. so i bought a bigger sketch book and lots of dark pastel and charcol. my room is too small for that. i’m making a mess on the floor everytime. i wish i had a large apartment with no division. 4 walls and room to put stuff everywhere.

my film is a portrait. isabelle, my cousin, almost my sister, is an athlete.

she works as a waitress in a restaurant on the south shore of montreal.

but her life revolves around boxing. she was once part of the canadian olympic national team, and the québec provincial team.

isabelle is 33-year-old. she is 5′0 and she is somewhere between 51 and 54kg, depending in which category she fights.

she won the ringside world championships in 2006 and 2008.

she also won the canadian golden gloves and she was bronze medalist at the panamerican championships in 2007.

in spite of her strenght in a ring, i know that she is a very fragile and sensitive person.

through boxing, she tries to become more stronger.

one day, she did a mistake. she felt abandoned, and so she went somewhere she shouldn’t have to. she broke someone’s  trust. 5 years later, that person found out. 13 years they’ve been together. and so he felt betrayed. and even if he wanted to try to forgive her, he couldn’t. and so he left.

isabelle lost the life she used to have.

and at the same time, she lost her confidence in herself.

nasty things could be said during a break-up.

in a way, boxing saved her.

i know that she is using boxing to get this confidence back.

but sometimes, i think she is using it wrong. she is now so afraid to get hurt, that she isolated herself. when she gets into that bubble, she has no limits. lack of sleep, overtraining, malnutrition…

she doesn’t want to think. doesn’t want to remember, doesn’t want to suffer anymore.

but she can’t fool me. i know what she is thinking, we grew up together.

so i am building my film around her, around her life in a suburbia neighbourhood, just outside of montreal.

i am old school. i am shooting on 16mm. reversal black and white film. i want contrasts.

there is less than a year to go before i’ll defend my thesis. i hope this film will open some doors. i am sick of living like a poor graduate student. i am not doing research in sciences or in engineering. i just want to be able to do my films and to pay the bills. but i know that things will work out. i am surfing a good wave right now. i’ll try to stay on it as much as i can.

i need to see the world. i haven’t left this country since i decided to go back to school 5 years ago.

next year. for sure.

but for now, i just want to do a great film with someone i deeply love and care about.