Surrendered
Marie-Josée (MJ) Desharnais is a Filipina-Québécoise documentary filmmaker, writer, and interdisciplinary artist based in Montréal. Her practice moves between experimental documentary, sound, archives, and embodied forms of storytelling, exploring memory, dissociation, adoption, diasporic identity, and survival.
Her experimental short SURRENDERED (2025) has received 23 selections, screenings, and programming invitations since beginning its circulation in May 2026, reaching audiences through artist-run cine-clubs, underground screenings, independent showcases, and international film festivals across North and South America and Europe, with its African premiere forthcoming in Cape Town, South Africa.
The film received two nominations at the 2026 Atlanta Experimental Fest for Best Experimental Documentary and the Experimental Vision Award and a third nomination for Best Experimental Short Film at the Cuzco Underground Cinema Festival in Peru, where it went on to win the award. SURRENDERED was also selected for Labocine’s international curatorial archive, Science New Wave.
She is currently developing her first feature-length documentary, Weaving Identity. Rooted in her personal exploration of identity, memory, and belonging, the hybrid project opens onto a collective dimension, weaving together fragmented archives, voices, gestures, sound, and material practices to explore how identities are shaped, negotiated, and shared across generations, communities, and diasporic experiences between Canada and the Philippines.
