Moving Sands

Moving Sands is a story of tempests, marauders, shipwrecks and ghosts. Part fiction, part documentary, this is the unlikely epic of 43 km of sand and 500 years of history. Director Philippe Baylaucq takes us into the legendary isolation of Sable Island, a fragile yet tenacious crescent of grassy dunes, 150 km from the shores of Nova Scotia.

Its paradoxical beauty and desolation have made it a shimmering utopia for some, the "graveyard of the Atlantic" to many. Visionaries, madmen, inventors and artists have all been lured to its shores, but now their secrets lie buried far beneath the dunes.

Baylaucq uses the century-old photo collection of islander Trixie Bouteillier and her imagined thoughts to guide us through Sable's notorious past. The story of this microcosm is also a beacon for the future, as an early warning system for weather patterns, pollution, and climate change. Moving Sands compels us to listen.