Social & External
This quirky little short by Gilles Carle was filmed on the pierced rock that stands near Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula. It is perhaps the most photographed natural phenomenon on Canada’s East Coast. Shot in the 1960s, the film has a very psychedelic feel to it, with animation, special effects, and a trio of women to guide us through.
Autism spectrum disorder (DSA) - It is not what they have, but what they are, who they are. They are Felix, Anthony, Marc and Brigitte. They are different.
This documentary let us to relive the challenge of the men behind the 1967 Universal Exposition in Montréal, Canada. By searching trough 80,000 archival documents at the national Archives, they managed to bring light on one of the biggest logistical and political challenges that were faced by organizers during the "Révolution Tranquille" in the Québec sixties. Includes the accounts of the Chief of Advertising Yves Jasmin, and businessman Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien.
Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.
This feature documentary studies the different faces of Montreal’s Greek community in 1969. Instead of giving voice to the businessmen and well-integrated few, the film highlights the cultural and economic problems encountered by new immigrants and their families.
In this feature-length documentary, six teenage girls, aged 14 to 16, agree to open up and have their private worlds invaded by the camera. They have to face problems that they intend to take on "to the end": early experience of sexuality, belonging to a gang, relationships with parents, social tolerance, friendship... They live tender and pure lives in their own way.
Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.
On the eve of the publication of a biography of Claude Jutra, one of the most famous and celebrated filmmakers in Quebec and Canada, a leak leaked to the press reveals that the book contains anonymous allegations of pedophile acts committed by the filmmaker. The rumor spread like lightning, suddenly igniting the entirety of Quebec society. By finding today some of the main witnesses propelled overnight into the heart of an unparalleled media tornado, the documentary reconstructs with archive images and other previously unpublished images, the sequence of events which led to a rewriting of the story.
This early work from Pierre Perrault, made in collaboration with René Bonnière, chronicles summer activities in the Innu communities of Unamenshipu (La Romaine) and Pakuashipi. Shot by noted cinematographer Michel Thomas-d’Hoste, it documents the construction of a traditional canoe, fishing along the Coucouchou River, a procession marking the Christian feast of the Assumption, and the departure of children for residential schools—an event presented here in an uncritical light. Perrault’s narration, delivered by an anonymous male voice, underscores the film’s outsider gaze on its Indigenous subjects. The film is from Au Pays de Neufve-France (1960), a series produced by Crawley Films, an important early Canadian producer of documentary films.
“Nuuhkuum uumichiwaapim” (« My Grandmother’s Tipi ») is an exploration of the sensorial and textural experience of a grandmother’s tipi. It is based on memories of being in a tipi, observing in the bliss of cooking and the time in-between.
The story of the Quebec Mosque Shooting—the first ever mass shooting in a mosque in the West—is known around the world, but the story of the community that survived the attack is all but unknown. The Mosque: A Community's Struggle is an intimate portrait of the resilient Muslim community of Ste-Foy, Québec, as they struggle to survive and shift the narrative of what it means to be a Muslim, one year after the devastating attack that took the lives of six of their members. As the world moves on, this small mosque and its community fights Islamophobia, harassment and hate speech. How will the community heal and how will they stop the rhetoric that threatens to precipitate further violence?
Ten years after an enormous open-pit gold mine began operations in Malartic, the hoped-for economic miracle is nothing more than a mirage. Filmmaker Nicolas Paquet explores the glaring contrast between the town’s decline and the wealth of the mining company, along with the mechanisms of an opaque decision-making system in which ordinary people have little say. Part anthropological study, part investigation into the corridors of power, Malartic addresses the fundamental issue of sustainable and fair land management.
The movie explores the origin of the Ukrainian language and persecution of those who defended its authenticity. Using examples of other countries, creators of the film prove that a nation cannot exist without a language.
Take a breathtaking train a ride through Nothern Quebec and Labrador on Canada’s first First Nations-owned railway. Come for the celebration of the power of independence, the crucial importance of aboriginal owned businesses and stay for the beauty of the northern landscape.
It's a sensitive, moving doc chronicling the life of Tétrault's brother Philip , a Montreal poet, musician and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. A promising athlete as a child, Philip began experiencing mood swings in his early 20s. His extended family, including his daughter, share their conflicted feelings love, guilt, shame, anger with the camera. They want to make sure he's safe, but how much can they take?
