Online cinema
Mon cirque à moi
Myriam Bouchard
Born into a family of circus performers, Laura has spent much of her young life on tour with her father Bill, a professional clown, and his stage hand, Mandeep. Secretly, she yearns for a more conventional life. Thanks to her new teacher, Patricia, she can finally fulfill her dream: to go to private school. Having spotted her new pupil’s enormous potential, Patricia helps Laura pass her entrance exams. This act is a form of rebellion against her father… Can bohemian Bill, a self-proclaimed nonconformist, accept that the apple of his eye has fallen so far from the paternal tree?
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.
Roastbeef
Myriam Bouchard
The strange noise from a butcher’s knife excites the woman of his dreams to dance… Secret love, loneliness, and missed connections… In one dance…
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.
Quelqu’un d’extraordinaire
Monia Chokri
Sarah, a beautiful and intelligent 30-year-old, has everything to succeed. But her fear of banality keeps her in a permanent state of inertia. One day, she wakes up in an unknown suburban house after a complete blackout. Helpless, she calls her friend Catherine and lands, against her will, in a bachelorette party with old acquaintances. As the night unfolds and the tension builds, Sarah’s pursuit of authenticity leads to a merciless climax where secrets are unveiled, and friendships, destroyed.
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.
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.
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.
Les sept dernières paroles
Sophie Deraspe
Sophie Goyette
Caroline Monnet
Ariane Lorrain
Inspired by Franz Joseph Haydn’s masterpiece The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, Les sept dernières paroles (The Seven Last Words) examines the experiential states and rituals of humankind through the seven themes of this musical composition: forgiveness, salvation, relationship, abandonment, distress, triumph and reunion.
Illusions of Control
Shannon Walsh
Who stands up when everything falls apart? A riveting meditation on resilience in the face of disaster, Illusions of Control unfolds in landscapes irrevocably shaped by human attempts to dominate them. Five women confront unbearable crises: Silvia searches for her missing daughter in the deserts of northern Mexico; Yang attempts to hold back the expanding desert in China; Kaori mobilizes mothers as citizen-scientist to monitor radiation in Fukushima, Japan; Stacey builds on Indigenous knowledge to confront toxic legacies in Yellowknife; and, Lauren stands at the crossroads of a serious health diagnosis in Chicago. Each story reveals surprising ways to live on, and reimagine life in the ruins.
Au pays des Mille-Îles
Lisa Sfriso
Artist Lisa Sfriso was given unprecedented access to the 16mm archives of the Thousand Islands Yacht Club‘s Archive Fund as part of a call for artistic projects by the Centre d’archives de Laval. This unprecedented access allowed him to create this installation: the story of the years of vacationing on the banks of the Mille-Îles River in Laval, from 1945 to 1960, a look at the past in order to question what has become of our rivers and our shores today. The artist has drawn from the raw material photograms bearing the imprint of those who created it and the traces of past years, in an approach that aims to minimize the ecological footprint and to make us think about our natural ecosystems and their preservation over time.
Babysitter
Monia Chokri
Cédric loses his job at Ingénérie Québec after making a sexist joke that goes viral. Encouraged by his intellectual brother, Cedric starts therapy and writes Sexist Story, a book that aims to be revolutionary and to attack misogyny. Nadine, exasperated by her boyfriend’s introspection and herself in need of dreams and adrenaline, is tempted by the surprising games initiated by the mysterious babysitter. Adapted from the play, the comedy Babysitter plunges even further into the unconscious, the desire to dominate the other and the drift of the couple.