Virginie Brunelle

This dance short film brings three sensual and brutal duets to the screen. Three stories overlap to tell the memory; what remains of the nostalgic feelings of their union. The choreographies sublimate the cracks that human experience generates and which settle in us like so many emotional vestiges.

As a civil war shakes the Quebec province of Canada, Valerie is the sole survivor of a mass execution where her boyfriend is killed. Years later, she’s in a close relationship with her new partner, Gabriel. At the Long Term Care Center where she works as an orderly, she befriends Jeanne, an erudite and funny woman, dealing with an important physical handicap. Mixing realism and worrying strangeness, The Laugh presents a humane exploration of the survivor’s syndrome, the grieving process, the distance of time, the power of love, and the joy of being alive.