Online cinema
Le peuple de la rivière Kattawapiskak
Alanis Obomsawin
Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary The People of the Kattawapiskak River exposes the housing crisis faced by 1,700 Cree in Northern Ontario, a situation that led Attawapiskat’s band chief, Theresa Spence, to ask the Canadian Red Cross for help. With the Idle No More movement making front page headlines, this film provides background and context for one aspect of the growing crisis.
Kanehsatake – 270 Years of Resistance
Alanis Obomsawin
In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, set the stage for a historic confrontation that would grab international headlines and sear itself into the Canadian consciousness. Director Alanis Obomsawin—at times with a small crew, at times alone—spent 78 days behind Kanien’kéhaka lines filming the armed standoff between protestors, the Quebec police and the Canadian army. Released in 1993, this landmark documentary has been seen around the world, winning over a dozen international awards and making history at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it became the first documentary ever to win the Best Canadian Feature award. Jesse Wente, Director of Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office, has called it a “watershed film in the history of First Peoples cinema.”
Myths for Profit: Canada’s Role in Industries of War and Peace
Amy Miller
Myths for Profits is a dramatic, exposé documentary which explores ‘Canada’s role in Industries of War and Peace’. Through diverse interviews and case studies this documentary unveils the specific interests and profits that are made by certain corporation, individuals and agency within Canada. By examining these myths we seek to find out what are the possible motives that hide behind these stories, and if there are certain people who stand to gain and maintain these misconceptions.
Sans terre, c’est la faim
Amy Miller
No Land No Food No Life is a hard-hitting film which explores sustainable small scale agriculture and the urgent call for an end to corporate global land grabs. This feature length documentary gives voice to those directly affected by combining personal stories, and verity footage of communities fighting to retain control of their land.
Trois temps après la mort d’Anna
Catherine Martin
Après la mort tragique de sa fille, une femme se réfugie dans la maison de ses ancêtres maternels en Kamouraska. Anéantie de douleur, elle ne veut plus vivre. Elle est sauvée in extremis par un homme. Sa présence bienveillante et la beauté de la nature environnante l’aident à retrouver le désir de vivre.
Le chant des ondes
Caroline Martel
This feature documentary takes us on an intriguing human and musical discovery of the most expressive of electronic instruments, the Ondes Martenot. A group of Martenot aficionados pursues the legacy of Maurice Martenot (1898–1980), inventor of an instrument as rare and fragile as it is magical. Musicians, artisans and scientists strive to unravel the mysteries of this “Stradivarius of the electronic age.”
Les États-Désunis du Canada
Guylaine Maroist
Vous croyez que seuls les Québécois ont des aspirations indépendantistes au Canada? Détrompez-vous. Il y a des séparatistes un peu partout dans le pays, d’une mer à l’autre… Le mot «séparation» est bilingue. Et il se prononce aussi bien avec l’accent de l’élite de la Colombie-Britannique que celui des riches cow-boys de l’Alberta, des modestes fermiers de la Saskatchewan et des pêcheurs désabusés de Terre-Neuve.
God Save Justin Trudeau
Guylaine Maroist
This documentary feature follows the much-hyped 2012 charity boxing match between Liberal MP Justin Trudeau and Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau. A behind-the-scenes look at the fight to win, whether in politics or in the ring, gives new, surprising insights into what makes these ambitious political leaders tick, and reminds us that outcomes are never certain.
Le pas de la porte
Iphigénie Marcoux-Fortier
Karine Van Ameringen
Témoin d’une époque charnière qui voit s’éteindre les derniers salons funéraires en milieu familial au Québec, Le pas de la porte raconte la quête de sens de Gilles et Gaétane, Lucienne, Diane Huguette et Nadia qui, de gré ou de force, apprivoisent la mort. À différents stades de leur vie, ils inventent des rituels en marge de l’industrie funéraire qui leur permettent de mieux vivre la mort, celle de leurs proches et, ultimement, la leur.
Au pays de la muraille enneigée
Marilú Mallet
Constructed as a road movie, Au pays de la muraille enneigée (Chile, Personal Geography) reveals today’s Chile through the search for identity of a Québécois filmmaker of Chilean origin. Through interviews, archival images and poetic reflections, the film asks a universal question: how can we define identity in the modern age?
La folle entreprise, sur les pas de Jeanne Mance
Annabel Loyola
A woman in the present goes in search of a woman of the past, Jeanne Mance (1606-1673), co-founder of Montreal. Annabel Loyola is from Langres, France, birthplace of Jeanne Mance four hundred years earlier. The two women share a common itinerary that leads them from Langres to Paris and, finally, to Montreal. In her adoptive city, Loyola discovers that Jeanne Mance was one of the founders of what would become the second-largest French-speaking city in the world. Fascinated by the unusual destiny of this woman from the town of her youth, she decides to retrace her steps.
Le dernier souffle – Au coeur de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal
Annabel Loyola
Fondé par Jeanne Mance en 1642 en même temps que la ville, l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal est sur le point de disparaître, pour être remplacé par le nouveau CHUM. Ce film nous plonge dans cet espace clos empreint d’humanité où la vie, la mort, l’amour et l’amitié se côtoient. Ce film est surtout une histoire de courage et de résilience, celle de ses derniers occupants.
Ma famille en 17 bobines
Claudie Lévesque
Images in Super 8. Fragments of an ordinary life are connected by silence and voices. The voices speak of life and death, materiality and spirituality, immanence and transcendence. The silence is that of the countryside, but also that of repressed memories, of the unsaid, of the secret things that happen between the two states of man, nature and culture.
Les désoccupés
Raymonde Létourneau
L’emploi pour tout le monde, pour la vie, c’est fini! Aux confins d’une époque qui s’achève, le monde du travail est en pleine mutation. Aux portes de l’an 2000, de gré ou de force, une personne sur trois sera pigiste, une sur quatre ne trouvera plus du tout de travail. Pourtant, malgré ce véritable état de crise, des individus réinventent leur vie; de nouvelles solidarités jaillissent.Ce film, véritable porteur d’espoir et de renouveau, nous plonge en plein coeur de la vie de ceux et celles qui subissent cette crise, et qui, au fil des défis, redécouvrent la nécessité de donner vie à leurs…
Chez les géants
Aude Leroux-Lévesque
Living with Giants delves into the imaginative world of Paulusie Kasudluak, a young Inuk facing responsibilities as he transitions into adulthood. The film portrays his thoughts, his dreams, and his beliefs, and allows for an intimate immersion into his life. Paulusie is a caring son to his ailing father and a good boyfriend. But what begins as the story of an innocent teenager quickly becomes the struggle of a young man coping with the guilt of having made a huge mistake. Tragically, Paulusie takes the most dramatic decision and takes his own life. Living with Giants remains a poetic journey.
Salt
Louise Leroux
These provocative 20-minute movies made by high school students provide an insider’s look at youth culture. Made by four 17-year-old directors with help from a professional crew, Salt is a four-part filmzine: four films, four flavours, four windows into youth culture that explore alternative education, Montreal’s flourishing independent music scene, the troubling practice of self-mutilation and a quest for the punk subculture.
Des marelles et des petites filles…
Marquise Lepage
On all continents, little girls draw figures on the ground on which they hop on one foot while chanting nursery rhymes and naive songs: it is the game of hopscotch, which goes from the ground to the sky… Everywhere, little girls talk about school, their future husband, the children they will have, the job they will have, the future they would like to have better for themselves and their families. Too often, however, through ignorance, poverty, perversion, stupidity, wickedness or superstition, adults steal their childhood: denial of the right to education, forced labour, mutilation and sexual abuse, etc. From India, Thailand, Yemen, Peru, Burkina Faso and Haiti, girls aged between 8 and 14 tell us about their lives. Fragile and strong, they are all beautiful. Listen carefully to the voices of Soni, Kamlesh, Mou, Yui, Dalal, Esmeralda, Fatou, Adiaratou, Safi and Maude.
Le jardin oublié – La vie et l’oeuvre d’Alice Guy-Blaché
Marquise Lepage
This feature documentary is a portrait of Alice Guy-Blaché, one of cinema’s most fearless pioneers. A filmmaker before the word even existed, Guy-Blaché made her first film at the end of the last century, when cinema was still brand-new. After directing, producing and writing more than 700 films, she slipped into oblivion. This film rescues her brave and shining memory.
Martha qui vient du froid
Marquise Lepage
With original music by Elisapie Isaac, this feature documentary tells the story of Martha Flaherty, who has lived a good part of her life in the “North Pole”. In the mid-1950s, under false promises of a better life, the Canadian government deported and abandoned Inuit families in the high Arctic. It was in this frozen wasteland that Martha and her family experienced one of the darkest and most misunderstood pages in Canadian history.
La nuit, elles dansent
Isabelle Lavigne
La nuit, elles dansent est une chronique familiale qui plonge au cœur d’un clan de femmes où l’on se transmet le métier de danseuses de mère en filles depuis la nuit des temps. Peu à peu s’y déploie un quotidien en mouvance entre les inquiétudes face aux menaces du métier, les ruses pour tromper la réalité et les espoirs d’une vie meilleure. Au milieu du chaos, la douceur et la tendresse émergent parfois, et la vulnérabilité trouve un espace étroit pour exister. Comme des héroïnes de la mythologie populaire, ces femmes sont excessives, solidaires, dignes et ingénieuses. Tourné au Caire, La nuit, elles dansent dessine avec un lyrisme exempt de tout sentimentalisme un univers baroque insoupçonné et fascinant, où le spectateur pénètre tel un témoin privilégié.
Junior
Isabelle Lavigne
Feature documentary exploring the world of junior hockey and its relentless competitiveness. A truer-than-life portrait of a demanding course, where young people as young as 16 are already playing their future. This full-length documentary offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at our national sport, hockey. Taking in an entire season of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar, this film reveals the daily lives of players and managers on this Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team. Admired and treated like professionals, junior hockey players are teenagers absorbed by their future. Trainers, shareholders, agents, scouts and parents: all eyes are fixed on these elite young players, even though only a tiny number of them will succeed in playing at the highest level.
Le commerce du sexe
Ève Lamont
This feature documentary is a study of The Sex Trade, a reality that has expanded worldwide to become a true industry, both online and off, over the course of the past few decades. Part investigative report and part editorial, the film is a foray into a brutal world whose key players trivialize the impact of their actions by claiming that prostitution is simply a service like any other. But who’s really benefiting? To meet customer demands and keep this lucrative business rolling, unscrupulous pimps and sex traffickers target women and girls, who are afraid to speak out. High-end and street prostitution, escort agencies, massage parlours, strip clubs, the porn industry, sex tourism – the sex trade is sprawling, and has even spread beyond major urban areas. Behind the glowing signs of clubs and bars and on various websites, men are paying for sex and buying the consent of the women. With incisive comments from experts and enlightening interviews with people who have left or are still in the sex trade, the film takes a behind-the-scenes look at this industry to…
Pas de pays sans paysans
Ève Lamont
In this documentary, crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the US Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environmemt and threatening the survival of farms. The proliferation of GMO crops is a further threat to biodiversity as well as to farmers’ autonomy. In Europe as well as North America, a current of resistance bringing together farmers and consumers insists that it is possible – indeed imperative – to grow food differently.
L’Imposture
Ève Lamont
In this feature-length documentary, women who have worked as prostitutes denounce the current trend toward making prostitution a job “like any other.” They are 22, 34, or 48 years old, and live in Montreal, Quebec City, or Ottawa. These women, who have recently left prostitution or are trying to leave it, are waging a bitter battle to reintegrate into society and find peace and security. In this long, treacherous process, each seeks to regain control of their lives, regain their self-esteem, and earn a place in the sun.