Geographies of Solitude

Two women on a lonely island off the coast of Nova Scotia: Sable Island. Conservationist Zoe Lucas was an art student when she came there for the first time in the 1970s and has been living on this remote strip of land for decades now, mostly alone. Director Jacquelyn Mills films Lucas on her daily trips around the island to observe the local flora and fauna. Her studies of Sable Island’s population of wild horses, for which the island is famous, and of the biodiversity there in general have made the self-taught scientist an esteemed expert. Collecting the alarming amounts of plastic washing up also forms part of Lucas’s everyday life. Mills films on 16 mm, which lends a special beauty to the barren landscape. Science and art fuse in the two women’s activities, each enriching the other. The movements of beetles are made into music. Horse manure provides useful data for Lucas and is just as useful for Mills’s experiments in film exposure and developing, along with algae and other vegetation. When Mills loads the final film reel into her camera, it is not just the shoot that is coming to an end, but also a special encounter between two people. A twinge of melancholy is unavoidable.
by Jacquelyn Mills
with Zoe Lucas
Canada 2022 English 103’ Colour Documentary form

With

  • Zoe Lucas

Crew

Director Jacquelyn Mills
Cinematography Jacquelyn Mills Additional Camera: Scott Moore
Editing Jacquelyn Mills Additional Editor: Pablo Alvarez-Mesa
Sound Design Andreas Mendritzki, Jacquelyn Mills
Sound Jacquelyn Mills
Producers Rosalie Chicoine Perreault, Jacquelyn Mills
Executive Producer Brad Mills

Produced by

Rosalie Chicoine Perreault

Jacquelyn Mills

Jacquelyn Mills

Born in 1984 in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. She studied film and works as a director, cinematographer, editor and sound designer. Following her mid-length film In the Waves (2017), Geographies of Solitude is her feature debut.

Filmography

2008 For Wendy; 10 min. 2013 Leaves; 5 min. 2017 In the Waves; 59 min. 2022 Geographies of Solitude; 103 min.

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022