Film

Les Vues Film Series presents ‘My Louisiana Love’

Vermilionville’s free monthly cultural film series, Les Vues, returns the last Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the Performance Center. November's screening will be curated by Monique Michelle Verdin, who will be showing her film, My Louisiana Love.

Vermilionville’s free monthly cultural film series, Les Vues, returns the last Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the Performance Center. November's screening will be curated by Monique Michelle Verdin, who will be showing her film, My Louisiana Love.

My Louisiana Love follows a young Native American woman, Monique Verdin, as she returns to Southeast Louisiana to reunite with her Houma Indian family. But soon she sees that her people’s traditional way of life – fishing, trapping, and hunting these fragile wetlands – is threatened by a cycle of man-made environmental crises.

As Louisiana is devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and then the BP oil leak, Monique finds herself turning to environmental activism. She documents her family’s struggle to stay close to the land despite the cycle of disasters and the rapidly disappearing coastline. The film looks at the complex and uneven relationship between the oil industry and the indigenous community of the Mississippi Delta. In this intimate documentary portrait, Monique must overcome the loss of her house, her father, and her partner – and redefine the meaning of home. Her story is both unique and frighteningly familiar.

Monique Michelle Verdin is a native daughter of southeast Louisiana. Her intimate documentation of the Mississippi River Deltas’ indigenous Houma nation exposes the complex interconnectedness of the environment, economics, culture, climate and change. Her photography has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is included in The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous, Yale University Press (2008) and Nonesuch Records’ Habitat for Humanity benefit album Our New Orleans (2005). She received her bachelor's degree in Mass Communication at Loyola University in New Orleans. My Louisiana Love (2012) is her first documentary film.

Les Vues is curated by filmmakers and enthusiasts, mostly from around the state. The films will range from features, documentaries, student film, shorts, animation, etc. that focus on the themes surrounding various aspects of culture. Following the screenings will be an open discussion between the audience and the curator about the themes of the movie and how they apply to that culture as well as our own.

The Les Vues Film Series screens My Louisiana Love, this Monday, Nov. 28, at 6:30 p.m. at the Performance Center in Vermilionville. Admission to the series is free, but a suggested $5 donation will go toward the cost of screening and curating costs for the series. For more details on the Les Vues Film Series, visit Vermilionville.org.