A Sitting in St. James

In Louisiana in 1860, eighty-year-old Madame Sylvie Guilbert chooses to sit for a portrait after more than six decades as mistress of Le Petit Cottage. The portrait sitting brings forward accounts spanning generations, from the plantation house to the fields. These stories reveal the Guilbert family’s secrets and history, along with the traumatic harm inflicted on enslaved workers. Thisbe, an enslaved woman, watches events while standing silently beside her mistress.