Sister

Director: Ursula Meier

2012 / 97min / DCP

Meier’s second collaboration with cinematographer Agnès Godard lays its scene at a posh ski resort in the snowy, scenic Swiss Alps—but instead of going in for stereotypical postcard views, Meier’s raw, wrenching Sister searches out the ugly underbelly of the picturesque. In a drab concrete housing complex surrounded by luxury on all sides, 12-year-old Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein, previously in Meier’s Home) lives with his chronically unemployed older sister (Léa Seydoux), supporting their household of two by lifting and reselling equipment from wealthy vacationers. Enormously empathetic, deeply moving, and entirely free of sentimental cheats, Sister offers an intimate depiction of destitution amidst decadence, so vivid that you can almost feel the slushy chill.

Intro from Ursula Meier & a post-screening Q&A with Meier and Kacey Mottet Klein Friday, March 31

Part of Permeable Boundaries: Films from Ursula Meier