VACANCES

FILMMAKER IN PERSON!

A strange and unusual mixture of warts-and-all family portraiture, subtle exposé of class and privilege, and minimalist depiction of a particular setting that’s rendered with an almost miraculously tactile sense of presence, photographer and filmmaker Victoria Hely-Hutchinson’s VACANCES is a deceptively unassuming film. Filmed over the course of a decade at the property in Provence inhabited by Hely-Hutchinson’s outrageously uninhibited grandmother, a bohemian Austro-Hungarian countess and family matriarch, VACANCES grew out of Hely-Hutchinson’s 2016 short film of the same name, and is something of a filmic complement to her autobiographical 2023 book, “I Left My Grandmother’s House”. The documentary delves, with a grace and open-endedness that belies its analytical bite, into both the bigger-than-life personality of “granny” as well as the sometimes strained dynamics among the rest of the family, including Hely-Hutchinson’s grandfather, mother, and siblings. Unique in suggesting by turns cinema vérité, reality TV, chamber theater, and the minimalism of landscape cinema, VACANCES is a profoundly singular work – a film whose technique is nearly invisible, but which sneaks up on you with its trenchant perceptions, layered meanings, and emotional and filmic complexity.

“This time-lapse film, shot over a period of ten years, follows members of several generations of a wealthy aristocratic family with Austro-Hungarian roots. The entire film is set in a Provençal villa, whose social heart is the swimming pool, around which the women gather to exchange various observations and, surreptitiously, gossip. The center of the family is the aging matriarch, who likes to talk about her extravagant, promiscuous life, but at the same time commands all the attention and authority of those around her. However, her influence gradually weakens with each passing generation.” –JI.HLAVA INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

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