Alternating between playful tableaus and wide-open landscapes under an endless sky, My Prairie Home sketches a portrait of nonbinary artist Rae Spoon. Skillfully pairing Spoon’s troubling confessions with the unique texture of Canada’s prairies, filmmaker Chelsea McMullan takes joy in capturing various icons that tidily connect with their story, opening the door to a visual universe and staging that ease the telling of their difficult past. Spoon’s crystalline voice takes us through, using a masterful and touching poetry of the everyday, the story of an evangelical childhood, a tyrannical father, and a painful journey of self-discovery that was poorly received by their friends and family. Perpetually shifting from one province to another to commune with a captive audience, this gentle musical documentary serves as an ode to the tangible influence that place has on art. From the bluish light of glaciers to dinosaur fossils, the prairies are depicted here as a cradle of life—in this case, Spoon’s.

RIDM Programming Collective