AÏDA NEITHER

(AÏDA NON PLUS)

A FILM BY ELISA GILMOUR

Leïla, a young woman of Moroccan descent, has returned to Corsica where she was born, to visit the grave of her stillborn child. A conversation with her brother Amine, who stayed in Bastia, brings up her doubts of burying there. Between Corsica, the mainland and Morocco, Leïla ponders her identity.

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MEET THE WRITER/DIRECTOR

ELISA GILMOUR is a Canadian/French filmmaker based in Toronto. Trained in image arts and visual studies, Elisa's work raises questions about belonging to a gender, a family, a lineage - many lineages. Her photography and video installations have made her recipient of prizes and awards, including the 2018 Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award and the TFVA Project Prize in 2024. She has exhibited in galleries such as the National Gallery of Canada, Corkin Gallery, the Art Museum and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. Her first short narrative On Either Side (2021) premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival. With producer Isabelle Deluce, she is in the development of her first feature film funded by Telefilm Talent to Watch and the Canada Council for the Arts.

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE

Being the child of a Corsican mother who immigrated to Canada in her 20s, I have borne witness to some of the values and compromises of migration, like the simultaneous abandonment and adoption of cultures. To explore these fissures in cultural identity, I have turned to cemeteries as a reflection of today’s Corsican society, of which nearly half comprises citizens, immigrants and emigrants either born in continental France or overseas. According to French law, the purchase of a burial plot is either indefinite or temporarily leased, both requiring regular maintenance to avoid the transfer of cadavers to an ossuary. From my own family history I wonder whether identity is singular or plural, emotional, sensorial, or bodily. What is held onto? What is transmitted? What is rejected?