Taking place in 1665 on Mohawk territory, Les Filles du Roi follows siblings Jean-Baptiste (Raes Calvert) and Kateri (Kaitlyn Yott) as they navigate their interactions with French settlers on their territory, forming a connection with Marie-Jeanne (Julie McIsaac).
Marie-Jeanne is a fille du roi, one of many French women sent to repopulate the “New World.” She is mistreated by her church, exploited for her labour, restricted to strict rules and is eventually forced into a marriage. She finds refuge with Indigenous traders Jean-Baptiste and his sister Kateri, who is interested in learning her language.
Equal parts heartwrenching and heartwarming, the film places community ties and personal relationships at the forefront of the narrative, but also doesn’t shy away from the violent side of colonial history. It first premiered at the 2023 Vancouver International Film Festival, but was screened at the Chan Centre’s Royal Bank Cinema this past Tuesday.
The screening was sponsored by UBC Theatre and Film and the Public Humanities Hub and was hosted by X̱wi7x̱wa Library, Arts Indigenous Student Advising and the UBC Film Society. CINE 200: Introduction Canadian Cinema, a course offered at UBC, was highlighted at the event, as it has started to prioritize Indigenous cinema — including films like this one — in recent years. Following the screening, writer, director, composer and UBC alum Corey Payette and editor Christian Díaz Durán participated in a Q&A discussion about certain choices they made in the process of putting the film together.
The genre-bending film uses the music as a vessel, showcasing its actors’ resounding vocals set to an instrumental backdrop inspired by opera and both contemporary and traditional musical theatre. The music won Payette a Richardson Theatre Award in Outstanding Sound Design. The finale stood out in particular — a triumphant finish that allows the strong voices of the cast to blend together. Payette’s other musical works, Children of God and Starwalker, both challenge the notion of what musicals can be, and Les Filles du Roi is no different.
Coming from a musical theatre background, Payette decided to adapt his stage musical version of Les Filles du Roi for the big screen when the pandemic halted live theatre. The film retains characteristics of its stage counterpart, shooting in physical locations while also using a black box theatre for certain scenes. The theatrical effect is used most prominently in scenes depicting sexual violence — the obscurity of the all-black background conveys the horror of sexual violence without making it too explicit. Payette pointed out that there is enough display of suffering on screen, and his goal was to create a depiction of violence that is respectful, yet effective.
One of the film’s most striking aspects is its multilingualism — dialogue and song bounce between English, French and Kanien’kéha, with the three main characters flowing through a varying degree of each. Their linguistic convergence culminates in a touching show of culture sharing, where Kateri and Marie-Jeanne gradually learn each other’s language as Marie-Jeanne integrates into the community. Payette explained that the decision to highlight different languages came from “a desire to understand a more accurate history,” particularly by taking “colonial history and flipping it on its head, and reimagining it through an Indigenous lens.” In regards to achieving this linguistic diversity on screen, the filmmakers commended the efforts the cast and crew went to in order to ensure the authenticity of the film, including taking lessons from a Mohawk elder.
Filmed entirely on the unceded land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, Les Filles du Roi honours the act of storytelling that has historically taken place on lands like these and continues the tradition with care.
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