In Short: Oasis
Posted on Sep 9, 2024 by Samara Husbands
We connect with Montreal-based director Justine Martin to discuss her Oscar-shortlisted, coming-of-age documentary short
An oasis is a preserved place, a refuge from one’s surroundings. For Raphaël and Rémi Cormier – 13-year-old twin boys and stars of Justine Martin’s documentary short Oasis – this haven is synonymous with their relationship, devoid of any external distractions, and of childhood, a time which is quickly coming to an end.
It’s implied that Raphaël has a developmental disorder and Rémi acts as his protector, but while they slip into young adulthood there’s a noticeable rift between them. “The first question I asked myself before making this film was: ‘What is left in the relationship when there are no external factors – no phones, no friends, no family? How can I capture the essence and the beauty of their relationship in a tangible way?’” shares Martin, who used to babysit the boys. “I’ve watched them grow up since they were maybe five years old. In the film, they are 13, and it was the first time I’d witnessed a distance between them,” she explains. “For the first time, one was growing up at a different pace than the other.”
Martin’s first project post-film school, Oasis allowed her to explore an interest in childhood while building a portfolio from the ground up. She assembled a team of other recent grads, including DOP Myriam Payette and editor Félix Bouffard-Dumas. Thanks to Martin’s special relationship with the twins, the cast and crew felt more like family. “We tried to make it as natural as possible so that, on-set, they would know everybody and know what we were doing with the camera to make them comfortable,” she describes. “In a sense, I was still the babysitter.”
Fact versus fiction
Although Oasis is a documentary, it reads almost like fiction. Martin made a purposeful decision to blend the genres, ‘building a universe’ that’s frozen in time. “Yes, it’s reality, but it’s my vision of reality, and I wanted to take the viewer on this emotional journey rather than a factual journey,” she explains. “For me, it was important that it was not about talking heads, it was about the relationship. I went for an immersive approach.”
Martin instructed the boys to do various physical activities – including paddleboarding, swimming, skating and catching frogs – to give the film a bit of structure. “After that,” she says, “what they’re doing is up to them. It was never scripted, never staged, it was only them being themselves.”
Martin went into the project with certain expectations; for instance, she thought it would be simple to get the boys talking. “I thought that the twins would talk to me about their childhood memories and they would talk together and it would be so touching,” she admits. “But I quickly understood that 13-year-old boys don’t especially care and just want to play.” Although an unplanned obstacle – “I was like ‘oh my god, do I have a film?’” she laughs – Martin made it work. “Instead of forcing it, I decided to adapt to their physicality because their relationship is expressed more in movement, so we embraced that.”
A sense of purpose
After completing the film and finding a distributor – Travelling Distribution – Martin took Oasis on her first-ever festival circuit. “We had a big run,” she recounts. “I didn’t expect it because I made the film for myself first.” Oasis elicited a strong emotional reaction from audiences, who shared various experiences with Martin. “Instead of commenting ‘you have such a beautiful film’, it was more like ‘I have a twin too’ or ‘I have children like that’. I found the sense of my practice, why I want to make films in the festival circuit.”
In 2023, Oasis was shortlisted for best documentary short film at the 96th Academy Awards, won the best documentary short at RiverRun International Film Festival and the Grand Prize at Indy Shorts International Film Festival. The New York Times added Oasis to its Op-Docs, a series of documentary shorts from ‘renowned and emerging filmmakers’. Despite these recognitions, “the most important thing for me was to reach my audience,” Martin assures.
Among other projects, Martin wants to expand on Oasis by following Raphaël and Rémi into their adult lives. “That’s going to be a long-term documentary, but I want to make a feature-length film out of their relationship and how it changes over time,” she says. “Seeing somebody change physically on screen is such a rare and special experience.”
This feature was first published in the September 2024 issue of Definition.
