Online cinema
23 Décembre
Myriam Bouchard
On December 23, the day before Christmas, the frenzy of the holiday season is everywhere and seizes many… In this ensemble film, we follow Elsa Lévesque (Virginie Fortin), a hardened bachelor who wants to find love; Stéphanie and Alex (Catherine Brunet and François Arnaud), who are expecting their first child; a singer (Stéphane Rousseau) who returns to the stage after a break; a woman (Guylaine Tremblay), mother of two daughters, wishing to organize a perfect Christmas; a teenager (Tao Vigneault) who carries a big secret; a man (Michel Barrette) who feels jostled by the modern world; and the new manager of a large hotel (Bianca Gervais) who must prove her worth for the position. Their destinies intertwine randomly on this already tumultuous day, crowned by a snowstorm… And if they all have a personal vision of a magical Christmas, they will discover that the perfect moments may be in the imperfections and contingencies.
M’entends-tu?
Myriam Bouchard
Can You Hear Me? is a dramatic comedy that plunges us into the unusual daily life of Ada, Fabiola and Carolanne, three long-time friends from the midst of poverty.
Les chroniques d’une mère indigne
Myriam Bouchard
Les chroniques d’une mère indigne (The Chronicles of an Unworthy Mother) is the very first French original web series produced in Canada. The web-series ia a 26 episodes of 2 to 6 minutes inspired by the Quebec novel Les chroniques d’une mère indigne (The Chronicles of an Unworthy Mother), by Caroline Allard. The Chronicles of an Missfit Mother is a web series that portrays the life of Missfit mother during her maternity leave. Through the story of episodes from his daily life and staging his little one family (Father Missfit, Daughter Missfit and baby), Missfit Mother confesses to us her crimes, her venial sins, his inability to be perfect and his white lies. She opens the door to her bungalow suburbs and invites us to laugh with it about the unsightly aspects of pregnancy and and childbirth, difficulties in married life with children, … of everything that weaves the daily life of a young mother but which we rarely dare to talk about.
Fabrique-moi un conte – Blanche-Neige
Myriam Bouchard
Miryam Bouchard reinvents Snow White in her own way. Fabrique-moi un conte: Eight directors adapt eight classic tales in a modern and contemporary way. They have carte blanche except that… It’s the public who decides which tale they adapt, the main location where the action will take place and the performer. An original way to revisit our classics!
Janette et filles
Léa Clermont-Dion
What has Janette Bertrand accomplished, what has she contributed to change in a lasting way? She has been a journalist, an actress, a screenwriter, an author, a psychologist… Through her fight to make her place, she has given a voice to all those who were refused to be heard, to the point of becoming a model for several generations of women who, in turn, inspire the next ones. All of them, Janette’s daughters: Guylaine Tremblay, Martine Delvaux, Noémi Mercier, Kim Lizotte, Claudia Larochelle, Régine Bertheau, Chris Bergeron and Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay.
T’as juste à porter plainte
Léa Clermont-Dion
This documentary focuses on Léa Clermont-Dion’s quest to understand the crossroads experienced by victims of sexual assault within the justice system. In parallel to the trying procedures she herself underwent, the filmmaker meets a dozen victims. The film echoes the painful scratches and collateral damage, consequences of an imperfect process. One thing is for sure: head high or low, victims rarely come out unscathed. Victims are often told that they should just file a complaint. But what if it’s not that simple? In this intimate and emotional documentary, Léa meets those who, in addition to saying “me too”, have taken this path of the cross. The goal is to give the microphone to those whose voices have been silenced by the justice system. How do they fare in practice? Guided by the experience of Léa who filed a complaint for a sexual assault suffered at the age of 17 during her first student job, T’as juste à porter plainte is punctuated by interviews with other victims and legal experts.
Primas
Laura Bari
Primas is a moving portrait of cousins Rocío and Aldana, two Argentinean teenagers who, after suffering violence that abruptly ended their childhood, free themselves from the spectre of their past. Traveling through Argentina and Montreal, the girls enter adulthood through eye-opening experiences such as learning dance, mime, theater, circus and visual arts. Their bodies become the expression of their imagination, their unique perspective and their unfailing resilience.
Ariel
Laura Bari
At the age of 33 Ariel’s legs are shredded by an industrial dough mixer. Ariel confronts his tremendous metamorphosis, learning how to be with others, while he invents his own prosthetic legs in Mendoza, Argentina. Through this metaphorical and intimate portrait, Laura Bari reveals a decade of Ariel’s struggle towards a new trans-humanity.
Antoine
Laura Bari
Antoine is five years old and he is blind. A sensitive and poetical portrait of the real and imaginary life of Antoine, a boy detective who runs, drives, hosts radio shows and adores simultaneous telephone conversations. Over the course of two years he uses a mini-boom microphone to discover and capture the sounds surrounding him. In this manner he co-created the sound track of this film. This child, who is of Vietnamese origin, was born one hundred days prematurely. He is integrated into the regular school system in Montreal, with unprecedented success.
P.S. Jerusalem
Danae Elon
Filmmaker Danae Elon began to film her three young sons the moment she and her partner Philip decided to leave New York and return to Jerusalem. The decision was prompted by the death of her father, leading Israeli intellectual and writer Amos Elon It was his dying wish that Danae not return, but her attachment to the place she always called home was stronger. On a journey back Danae’s camera captures her three young boys growing up, asking endless questions and confronting the reality around them The place she once saw as “home” challenges her relationship with her partner and the future of her kids It is through the prism of parenthood, children and a family that the story of this film exposes a deep, complex and painful portrait of Jerusalem today.
The Patriarch’s Room
Danae Elon
“Jaffa Gate Is Ours!” screamed the headlines in 2005. Greek Orthodox Patriarch Irineos was accused of selling church property to Jewish settlers. He denied all the accusations. But for the first time in the church’s 2000-year history, its leader was ousted. For 11 long years, Irineos was imprisoned in his chambers. In this first-person account, filmmaker Danae Elon unravels what really happened to the former Patriarch. With unprecedented access to the inner workings of the church, a riveting, mysterious, disturbing, and often humorous story is revealed about an unknown world within the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.
Le chant d’une soeur
Danae Elon
Can we really know what is in the heart of our loved one? A Sister’s Song is the intimate and delicate story of two sisters, Marina and Tatiana, who live apart because of the choice Tatiana made in becoming a nun. Marina, who has hardly seen or spoken to her sister in twenty years, feels that something is wrong. She travels to a monastery in Greece to try to find the sister she has lost. An unexpected event will lead both of them on a path they never thought possible.
Partly Private
Danae Elon
To circumcise or not to circumcise, that is the question pondered by filmmaker and future mother Danae Elon and her husband Philippe. The couple, who hope to discover the sex of their baby at birth, are on two sides of the issue. Philippe, who is himself circumcised and a Jew of Algerian decent, explains that it is a cultural tradition for him. For Danae, submitting a newborn to this ritual would be absurd and irrational. This documentary follows her humorous and instructive exploration of this practice. In her quest she will meet rabbis, imams, doctors, theologians and parents. She will discover that myths and rituals in many great cultures and religions surround these few centimeters of skin.
Another Road Home
Danae Elon
Shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, Danae Elon’s highly educated parents, noted Israeli author Amos Elon, and former correspondent and literary agent Beth Elon, hired a Palestinian man named Musa, the father of eleven children, to take care of their six month old daughter on a daily basis. It was a job he would continue for the next twenty years until she was grown and he was able to save enough money to send all eight of his sons to America for education and career opportunities. The last time Danae saw Musa, in 1991, he proudly showed her the house he constructed in the Palestinian village of Battir. Then, against the mounting tensions of the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Intifada, the two families lost track of each other. During that time Danae began to realize how much of an influence Musa had on her life and sought to reconnect with him. Her quest led her from her home in New York to Paterson, New Jersey, then to Battir in the occupied territories, and back to her…
Never Again Forever
Danae Elon
This powerful film about the Jewish Defense League traces the militant group’s history from the streets of Brooklyn where it originated to the Occupied Territories where it flourishes today, painting a disturbing portrait of a cycle of hate born in the ashes of the Holocaust.
Les pieds dans le vide
Mariloup Wolfe
Three friends meet one summer at a skydiving center. Adventurous, they spend most of their time jumping – jumping for the thrill, jumping to forget, jumping to escape what haunts them. Rafael, 20 years old, dreams of becoming a pilot; Manu, 19 years old, has to take care of her mother who suffers from cancer; and Charles, 30 years old, owns the skydiving center. In his own way, he tries to keep order and prevent his daredevil friends from getting hurt, while becoming more and more attached to Manu, with whom he develops a romantic relationship. A newcomer joins the group, Ludo, a shy young stranger trying to discover who he really is. Quickly, several trials will upset the eventful life of each one, shaking the foundations of the solid trio formed by Rafaël, Manu and Charles.
Jouliks
Mariloup Wolfe
A couple died by drowning. A news item that will be reported in the newspapers. Refusing to let her parents be reduced to this drama, Yanna, their seven-year-old daughter, tells us their true story, one that is not a tragedy, but above all a love story. Through her luminous story, we learn the details of a life that was meant to be free of convention and preconceived ideas.
Le grand move
Mariloup Wolfe
This documentary series follows families from large urban centers who have chosen to settle in the regions in search of a better quality of life. Behind the camera and in the field, Mariloup Wolfe meets these families and reveals the thoughts, steps, paths and decisions of these neo-ruralists. Through a series of portraits, viewers discover the pros and cons of life outside the big city.
Arlette
Mariloup Wolfe
Approached by the Prime Minister of Quebec to rejuvenate the image of his government, Arlette Saint-Amour, director of a fashion magazine, becomes Minister of Culture overnight. She succeeded in creating a real buzz around Culture with her look and her audacity. Bold, she does not hesitate to confront the most powerful of them all: the Minister of Finance. Their files are battles to be fought, but their confrontation is a real war to be finished because, at the end of the day, this film revolves around a great theme: the power of the image. A comedy of appearances that takes us behind the scenes of the National Assembly, where the zany meets the serious, where comedy embraces drama.
Sortir de l’ombre
Gentille Assih Menguizani
Into the Light features the liberating life stories and powerful words of inspiring Quebec women of African origin who’ve regained control over their lives after suffering from domestic violence. The film transcends prejudice and breaks the silence, pulling back the curtain on a poorly understood, hidden world, while testifying to the tremendous power that comes from overcoming isolation and accepting one’s self. It’s a luminous dive into the quest for personal healing and universal humanity. This is Togo-born director Gentille M. Assih’s third documentary
Jouvencelles
Fanie Pelletier
Through moments in the lives of three groups of girls, images gleaned from the web and live streams of young women around the world, Bloom delves into the world of today’s teenage girls. We delicately observe a hyper-connected but lonely generation inhabited by great lucidity, an inner struggle with self-image obsession, and a need for self-affirmation in the face of a complex sense of alienation.
Photo jaunie
Fanie Pelletier
Faded photograph is a documentary in which the filmmaker traces the existence of her father, who died when she was 12, through a montage of his memoirs. From family films shot by her paternal grandfather and her father between 1954 and 1998, and the diaries he wrote during his life, the director tells the story of an ordinary man whose personal memory echoes a collective memory : one of a generation bursting out of Quebec’s great darkness in which freedom is also synonym of disorientation. Thus begins a dialogue marked by nostalgia, between joyful videos and tormented writings, which soon becomes universal.
Paparmane
Joëlle Desjardins Paquette
A depressed cat transforms the lives of a grieving parking attendant and an exuberant telegram singer. A cosmic encounter on a pastel background.
Falcon Lake
Charlotte Le Bon
Born in France to a Quebecois mother, Bastien, almost 14, spends his summer vacations in the Laurentians with his parents and his little brother. Louise, his mother’s best friend, welcomes them to her cottage on the shore of a lake. The day after his arrival, the young Frenchman visits the area with Louise’s 16-year-old daughter Chloé. According to her, the lake is haunted by the spirit of a drowned boy. With the teenager, Bastien experiences his first sexual and love feelings. But he feels threatened by the presence of the son of the new owner of the cottage, a 19-year-old English-speaking man who is always hanging around Chloé.