Levers

Dir. Rhayne Vermette
2025, Canada, 89 min
English and French with English subtitles

Developed from a script of poetry and filmed on location throughout the Red River Valley on some broken Bolex cameras, Levers is a story about the act of the human hand which turns rock into stone.

The film begins with a bang as a crowd gathers at the municipal grounds of an unnamed Manitoban city for the unveiling of a new sculpture. Later that evening, a large blast erupts in the sky, giving rise to a global day of darkness. Worldwide, people huddle around the warm glow of their television sets eagerly awaiting a new sun to rise, yet in the Red River Valley, life carries on as usual. But death is an unstoppable force, made evermore apparent under the clear light of the sun’s return. Determined to satiate her curiosity surrounding recent events, an intrepid civil servant undertakes an odyssey into the gritty, yet seemingly benevolent sculptor, whose world is shrouded in mystery. Relationships criss-cross throughout the film acting as the glue that holds together a vibrant array of elemental imagery: A fiery sunrise that is as frightening as it is beautiful, and the fringe of a buckskin jacket billowing in a flurry of incandescent snow. Indigenous cultural markers intermingle with Catholic and esoteric symbolism, exemplifying the religious syncretism emblematic of many Métis people.

Mixing in-camera fx with a delicate eye for beauty, Levers portrays an ominous story conveyed through a potent mixture of the rarity of fantasy and the idleness of the everyday.

Join us on March 20 for a post-screening Q&A with filmmaker Rhayne Vernette!