“The LeMieurs” is going to Slamdance

Disturbed by the season of change enveloping his family, Sammy decided to immortalize the events on camera, shooting and sound recording a majority of the film’s material by himself—offering a poignant intimacy with his grandmother and other familial subjects. He started to show producer/editor Collin Colaizzi the footage he was getting in the spring of their sophomore year at NYU, without any idea of what it would become. Subsequent “gathering missions” over the next two years focused the film’s emotional core and narrative strands; among them the decline of Beverly’s health in contrast to her ever vibrant spirit, Steve processing the untimely passing of his son, and Kyle and Seth dealing in the business of death day-to-day. At first weary of his DSLR and constant prodding to “lav them up,” over time Sammy’s family became spirited collaborators in the crafting of this portrait of their own lives. Tim LeMieur (e.g.) was the one to invite Sammy home for a pivotal meeting of the brothers about Beverly and the future of their childhood home. Back in NY, Colaizzi took on the role of family dramaturg and sounding board. Following their graduation in the spring of 2024, Sammy and Collin made one more trip back to Little Falls for final reflections and supplemental capture. They began whittling down some 700 odd hours of amassed footage in earnest, and finished the edit in early March of 2025. Making a film about your own family is tender, uncanny, and precarious all at once, but proved to be a seminal experience to be cherished by Sammy, his father, brother, cousins, and the rest of the LeMieurs for the rest of their lives. While the film is a document of one family with supreme specificity, Sammy and Collin hope that it scratches at something anyone who has lost a key family member can identify. The love and the values Beverly upheld in her life—and then passed onto her boys—are universal. First Stop: Slamdance.

A Director’s Statement from Sammy:
I began shooting The LeMieurs as a response to a period of ongoing change within my family. At the time, that change felt unsettling, and my initial impulse was simply to preserve—to immortalize events as they unfolded. What began as documentation gradually became something more deliberate, as I found myself both guiding and following an evolving narrative over the course of four years.

The movie was a one-man operation. While this came with limitations, it ultimately allowed the subjects to live naturally and, at times, forget the presence of the camera. I aimed for a narrative, observational approach—telling the story visually through scenes and moments rather than interviews, voiceover, or direct explanation. Events are presented plainly, with restraint. Subtlety was essential, as was the absence of music. By remaining as unobtrusive as possible, I hoped the audience could fully inhabit the family’s world and, for an hour, feel like a LeMieur themselves. Screenings for those who know the family, as well as those who do not, confirmed that this approach was effective.

The film draws inspiration from the autobiographical explorations of family, life, and death found in the documentaries of Ross McElwee. It was also influenced by the work of Luchino Visconti; though fictional, his films often confront the hardship of change within families—most notably Rocco and His Brothers. The final scene of that film directly inspired the closing moments of The LeMieurs, which centers on two family members engaged in a raw conversation about the fear and uncertainty of the family’s future dynamic, which I always found to be a beautiful punctuation in Rocco.

While The LeMieurs began as a deeply personal project, I believe it reflects experiences that are universally shared.