A patient camera glides over the everyday objects: still lives on the wall, flowers in the vase, a swaying drop light. The sun enters the cosy home where Noëlla sits smoking at her laptop, playing Solitaire. The situation is hopeless. She’s going to lose against the computer once again. All the while her son-in-law, Pierre, is organising everything she needs, pragmatic and friendly: breakfast, the (last) doctor’s visit – and then the transfer.

Because Noëlla intends to die, and she is determined. Pierre conscientiously manages the paperwork and invites her loved ones to say goodbye. They bring photos and chat with the protagonist who is about to depart this life and who waves one last time before the doctor administers the deadly dose. Bye bye, that’s it. Dying can be so unexcited. This slowed-down, minute study of time very gradually acquires a completely different meaning from what one assumed at first. How one would love to see the onetakes from the beginning again. Félix Lamarche’s unpretentious observation evolves into a metaphor of life. Noëlla’s insistent head-on gaze from the screen into the viewers’ eyes will always be unforgettable.

Ratté develops the pictorial concept of the floral still life into a new kind of illusionary space. The fragmented floral sculptures, created by 3D scans, design a speculative future in which extinct plants are preserved in a weightless archive. The representation gains a dimension but does not become more than a surface mould with no informative value about the living core.

Sable Island, a good 43 kilometres long, less than two kilometres wide, a crescent-shaped sand bank in the Atlantic, about 160 kilometres off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. This inhospitable looking place, permanently changed and moved by the weather, has been the home of Zoe Lucas for more than forty years. She once came for a brief visit as an art student, fascinated by the semi-wild horses on the island. She stayed, became an environmental activist, self-taught scientist and esteemed expert on biodiversity. Jacquelyn Mills’ enchanting 16mm images not only convey the enormous richness of the lonely landscapes. They also depict nature conservation as a fulfilling life’s work.

Raphaël and Rémi are twins and very close. They spend their time in the skate park and their holidays by the lake. There’s always something to do: boating, catching frogs, bathing in the rain. This could go on forever. But we slowly realise that these holidays are also a farewell, because Raphaël will soon transfer to a school for children with disabilities.

The red house dissolves and transforms into all kinds of other things. The house re-assembles, but bigger and wider than before. Quicker than the eye can see, all kinds of brightly coloured shapes appear on the screen. What was a clown a second ago suddenly becomes a wild mix of fantastic images and figures. And right in the middle, the red house keeps turning up.

A young woman attaches acoustic sensors to a tree, hammering nail after nail into the bark. Something stirs in the bowels of the earth, apparently attracted by the sound. This being, whatever it is, starts to search for its origin, gliding through tunnel systems, bizarre subterranean formations. Sometimes you see our world from below, people walking their daily paths. The soil lives! There is still a lot to discover.

For thirty years, Sofía Brockenshire’s father travelled the world as an official of the Canadian Immigration Service, his family always by his side. Diaries and other contemporary documents show the numerous relocations, the destinations in South Korea, India, in South and Central American countries. The result is a detailed mosaic of memories and audiovisual snippets that tries to take not only the civil servant’s perspective, but also that of his wife and children.

When asked where they originally came from, the Brockenshire kids answer cleverly: from the suitcases. Because they travel with them year after year, always prepared to have to leave a place they just moved to. The life of the family is determined by the Canadian authorities, they seem to have practically no say in the matter. Neil Brockenshire’s views on his professional career are ambivalent: full of gratitude and certain to have helped people, but also thoughtful and occasionally resentful. In her film, Sofía Brockenshire re-assembles what was scattered across the globe over the decades: photos, thoughts, desires. “The Dependents” is a personal portrait and something of a reflection about the existence as a professional expat in a world that has no borders for some and nothing but obstacles for others.