Title: Weaving Identity
Written & Directed by: Marie-Josée Desharnais
Produced by: MJMT Inc. (CAN)
Genre: Hybrid documentary / experimental documentary / visual essay
Length: Approx. 75 min
Languages & Subtitles: French • English
Format: HD / 4K
Status: Development
Logline
Weaving Identity begins with the I, when a face tells one story and a life carries another, and opens outward, moving back and forth through papers, memories, people and their truths to weave belonging not as a place to return to, but as something we keep making together, layered.
Synopsis
Québécoise, born in Manila and adopted as a baby, MJ has spent her life being read as from somewhere else. As she returns to adoption papers, family memories and versions of her own story that refuse to line up, Weaving Identity asks what it means to belong when neither origins nor proof can fully explain who we are. What begins with the I gradually opens outward, toward family, diaspora, community and the people who carry their own ways of remembering and belonging. Through archives, shared voices, textile and collaboration, the film turns a personal search into a collective one: how do we make room for all the contradictions, inheritances and relationships that shape us, without asking any one of them to disappear?
Artistic Vision
A poetic, non-linear cinematic language built on:
• intimacy and texture (fabric, skin, paper)
• a sonic architecture of breath, friction & layered quietness
• textile gestures as metaphor and method
• collaboration over extraction — participants are co-creators
• four movements shaped like a musical score
The film inhabits ambiguity instead of resolving it.
Four Movements
Groundhog Day — suspended time, exhaustion, small ruptures
All at Once, Once for All — archives, contradictions, diasporic friction
In Kapwa — co-presence, rituals, community care
Ruined Remains — integration, ambiguity, tenderness
Filming Locations
Canada: Montréal, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Toronto
Team
Marie-Josée Desharnais
Director & Screenwriter
Emilie Chamberland
Director of Photography
Tiago McNicoll Castro
Lopes Sound Recordist
Maria-Lorraine Caluya
Audio Engineer
Edward Crompton
Video Editor
Valentin Large
Assistant Editor
Mariève Ledoux
Assistant Director
Audrey-Ève Beauchamp
Photographer
MJ Deompoc
Social Media Manager
Catherine Lévesque
Make Up Artist
Eva Caruso
Translator
Laura Trummer
Graphic Designer
Haut Beau
Handweaver
Tricia Crivellaro
Fashion Designer & Researcher
Bianca Isabel Garcia
Fashion Designer
Production Company
MJMT Inc.
Vaudreuil-Dorion, Québec, Canada
U.S. Fiscal Sponsor
UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, New York
Conditional fiscal sponsorship
