Epistolary Enunciation in Quebec and Indigenous Cinemas: The Letter as Identity Vector and Memory Tool

Abstract

This article focuses on the use of the letter in Canadian cinema, and more particularly in Quebec films featuring plural identities that further complexify this province’s relationship with its identity and those of others. This article explores how the letter becomes a means for Quebec migrants to communicate with their family history and with their host community. It also shows how the letter is a mediator and a symbol uniting minority cultures in search of roots, for filmmakers who stage immigrants or mixed-race protagonists. Finally, I explore how the letter serves the Indigenous peoples of Canada, victims of cultural genocide, by participating in decolonization through the re-establishment of family and community ties. In doing so, the article provides a general picture of the use of the letter as an object of memory and reconciliation in contemporary Quebec and Indigenous cinemas.