Online cinema
Soraïda, une femme de Palestine
Tahani Rached
This feature-length film introduces viewers to Soraida, a Palestinian woman who lives in Ramallah. In her neighbourhood the women do not all wear veils, the men do not rattle off empty political slogans, the young people do not strap bombs to their belts, and the children play together like kids everywhere. Taking us into the daily existence of Soraida, her family and neighbours, the film compels us to ask fundamental questions about life in the Middle East.
Urgence! Deuxième souffle
Tahani Rached
Emergency! A Critical Situation explores the reality of an evening shift in the emergency room of the Centre hospitalier Pierre-Boucher and reveals the daily lives of the nurses who work in this essential service to the population. The camera follows in the footsteps of these professionals and reveals what they have to endure in order to cope with the demands of their work, which is sometimes carried out under intense stress, at the limit of what is bearable. From the triage room to the shock room, from the patients lined up in the corridor to the waiting room, they run to put out fires, often with only one priority: the preservation of life. It is urgent, urgent to listen to these women who resist and succeed, despite the difficulties, in keeping human dignity at the center of their concerns.
Au Chic Resto Pop
Tahani Rached
This feature-length film about poverty in Montreal is set against a soundtrack that includes rap, blues, rock, and country and western music. The film deals with the universal themes of hunger, hope and love and is named after an actual Montreal restaurant that’s been serving those in need for over 25 years.
The Lower Plateau
Liz Singh
A formerly successful Montreal musician trudges through the darkest days of winter, armed with a backpack full of weed and a repertoire of Alanis Morissette covers. Dogged by her ex-band mate’s new hit song, Jaine mourns the loss of her career, her band and her self respect. In the heart of the city’s independent music scene, the snow covered Plateau, Jaine encounters both allies and obstacles, including her best friend-slash-roommate Mari, her married ex-lover-slash-manager David, and her charming new customer-slash-potential love interest, Darren. When a glittering opportunity in the Emerald City of Toronto threatens to lure her into a shiny new life, Jaine struggles to sever old ties. Her ex wants her to move on, her mom wants her to move to Toronto, her best friend wants things to stay the same forever, and her clients just want weed, but Jaine has other plans.
Amoureuses
Louise Sigouin
For the first time, cloistered nuns agree to be filmed for a year in all aspects of their lives. The nuns of Berthierville, the only French-speaking community of Dominican nuns in North America for nearly a century, reveal themselves in a rare and unique documentary in which testimonies and exceptional archives are interwoven. We invite you on a spiritual journey to the heart of the monastery’s intimacy.
Sisters: Dream & Variations
Catherine Legault
Tyr and Jasa grew up in an artistic household where art was a way of life. Quirky and insightful sisters, Tyr is a musician and singer while Jasa is an interdisciplinary artist. Inspired by their great-grandmother’s recordings of Icelandic folk songs, they have developed artistic practices that draw on their colourful imaginations and Icelandic roots. Their exploration leads them to journey to Iceland for the first time and collaborate on a project that brings together their artistic disciplines and cultural heritage. In her debut feature film Sisters: Dream & Variations, Catherine Legault immerses us in an oneiric world made up of animation, performances and cinema vérité. More than a portrait, the film is an inspiring look at the artistic approach, its various forms and how it can simultaneously express and explore who we are.
Qu’un au revoir
Geneviève Poulette
In a letter, a grandfather confides in his grandson, recalling the Normandy landings in 1944.
Geek Girls
Gina Haraszti
Nerdy women – the “hidden half” of fan culture – open up about their lives in the world of conventions, video games, and other rife-with-misogyny pop culture touchstones. While geek communities have recently risen to prominence, very little attention is paid to geek women. Filmmaker Gina Hara, struggling with her own geek identity, explores the issue with a cast of women who live geek life up to the hilt: A feminist geek blogger, a convention-trotting cosplayer, a professional gamer, a video-game designer, and a NASA engineer. Through their personal experiences in the rich cultural explosion of nerdom, Geek Girls shows both the exhilaration of newfound community and the ennui of being ostracized. These women, striving in their respective professions and passions, face the cyberbullying, harassment, and sexism that permeate the culture and the industry at large. A rich conversation-starter for any class on Pop Culture and Feminism.
Your Place or Minecraft?
Gina Haraszti
Your Place or Minecraft? is a machinima documentary webseries that follows the virtual lives of a handful academics playing Minecraft together. An online adventure of fun, smarts and drama. The show takes place in the virtual land of the ‘mLab server,’ one of the most modded Minecraft servers in the world. But what makes it really special is that it is owned by academic game research centres of Concordia University where the players—students and professors—all work together in real life. Their real life friendships, objectives and conflicts result in fascinating, self-reflexive and sometimes explosive gameplay.
TacTic
Gina Haraszti
Do you really feel free? Have you ever had the feeling of running in circles or that you were being hunted? In which direction do you feel the world is chasing you? Tactic is an experimental video about escape and confrontation which could help to make clear whether you are chasing or being chased. Even if there is no escape, try to look around and while running, gain a view of the world!
Milcham
Gina Haraszti
Milcham is a Hebrew name of the Phoenix bird. The film tells the story of Mrs Endre Akarat (Ani) and her niece, the artist Nicole Zádor. Nicole came to Hungary for the first time in 2003. Her parents had escaped to the USA during the revolution in 1956. When she arrived in Hungary, Nicole started to search for her relatives but she only found a suitcase, full of memories from the second world war. The suitcase had belonged to her Aunt Ani, who had been deported to Auschwitz in 1944 when she was 31 years old. Anni’s suitcase was the only trace of Nicole’s heritage. This documentary reveals the path, laid by the photos and letters contained in the suitcase, that Nicole followed to discover her and her family’s hidden past.
Waiting Is Irrelevant When Time Is Non-Linear
Gina Haraszti
Time has played a intriguing part in the existence of this film, beyond its topic and title. Dormant for 6 years on a forgotten harddrive, not even the filmmaker Gina Hara remembered its existence. Maybe a school project, maybe a camera test? Waiting Is Irrelevant When Time Is Non-Linear is consistent with Hara’s experiments into exploring the boundaries of film as a medium. In this project Hara addresses questions around linear storytelling and the threshold between film and filmmaker. Without end credits the film almost seems to continue on beyond its limited time frame.
REI
Gina Haraszti
REI tells the story of a shut-in, a depressed young woman who cannot bring herself to leave her apartment. She gradually loses contact not just with the outside world, but with reality itself. Upcoming talent Amélie Robitaille gives an stunning performance as the young recluse. When somebody you really love dies, you also die in a way, not literally, but spiritually. The main character is so dependent on her parents, that she cannot continue her life after their death. She locks herself up in this memory bubble, the house, where she can pretend that her parents could come home any minute. She never touches her parents’ stuff, expecting their return. Not being able to continue with her own life, she starts a virtual one. She watches films and plays games all the time to avoid being alone with her thoughts. She tries to forget her whole existence to get rid of the pain, collapsing her identity into her inner world.
Wall
Gina Haraszti
Have you ever felt the world you live in amplifies the fear and questions that you hold within? Take a look through the lens and witness a visual perception of solitude.
Bonbons bijoux
Sylvie Laliberté
“A very self-filmed and narcissistic video composed of brief chattering sequences, since the truth is short. And the frame? I am the frame. Bonbons bijoux also transports us into the intimacy of the home. The artist uses the ridiculousness of language to underline the difficult presence of the direct, the self-referential, the authentic. Bonbons bijoux takes us to the grating borders of the “suave feminine”. The ingenue, the naughty, the naïve get rid of their negative connotations. By making incongruous associations of words, objects and ideas, the artist blurs the lines, disintegrating the preconceived limits between girl and woman, between naivety and perversity.”
Oh la la du narratif
Sylvie Laliberté
This is the story of a love story. Often we think that love stories are lived in a lying position, very very lying. But no, love is lived standing up. So I tell it with both feet in the snow. I play with and within the limits of the screen to translate how much love tends towards freedom. Even when it is a captive story of its history and its form, here the video.
Papillon cerise
Sylvie Laliberté
In my bathtub, I ask myself questions about how bridges hold up, what love holds up… and then the characteristic of the man and the woman is not to know everything.
Mes amis les poissons
Sylvie Laliberté
“I capture small, select moments. They are taken from the heart of the subject. The subject is me. And I speak casually. I catch moments floating on a beautiful volume of water. My work is special because it suits me. I can sing, waddle and say things. A woman sits anywhere, that’s something. It’s elegant often enough if you want to cross your legs. I cross them.”
L’outil n’est pas toujours un marteau
Sylvie Laliberté
I wanted to share the instrument of my happiness. It’s easy, it’s clear and it’s well done. I hope you will enjoy it. And then everyone has a star.
J’ai tout compris
Sylvie Laliberté
A very simple video clip: the singer jumps from one picture to another and does some quality lip-sync on a real love song full of love. The whole thing is perfectly synchronized. It’s a clip without beautiful girls and guys behind the singer.
Il n’est pas innocent que le bonheur soit heureux
Sylvie Laliberté
Happiness is a tautological state. Why are we happy? Because we are happy. It is very simple. And it smells good. Still happy that we can be happy. This video was made for the Manif d’art 2003 in Quebec City, about happiness and simulacra.
Une femme est une femme et moi aussi
Sylvie Laliberté
Here is an interior woman who knows how to receive and who speaks very decorative and so feminine. The result of a very special attention, the image and the sound are one, that is to say that they go at the same speed; at the speed of a woman who seeks to know, in a very simple and practical way. Or when being a woman is almost child’s play.
Le soleil brille pour tout le monde mais les hommes préfèrent les blondes
Sylvie Laliberté
The Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal (FNC) (37th edition) invited me to make these small video sequences in order to display them in the city: in a subway station, at the Grande Bibliothèque and at the FNC Lab. We had to respect the theme, which was cinema, and we didn’t have to put any sound on so as not to disturb people. They told me that we live in a world where there are too many images. So, of course, I added some. In collaboration with Vidéographe, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, and the Société de transport de Montréal.
Bien sûr
Sylvie Laliberté
Small demonstration of “what a mountain is for” with some small objects, words and a song.