Montreal Stories
Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.
Denys Arcand
Patricia Rozema
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan
Léa Pool
Michel Brault
Michel Brault
Paule Baillargeon
Jacques Leduc
Also Directed by Denys Arcand
Jean-Marc is a man without qualities living in times that are out of joint. His wife and children ignore him; he's a mid-level government functionary in Montreal doing his job without care. He has an active imagination of sexual conquest, but his only real feelings come when he visits his aged mother, whose health is failing. When his wife leaves abruptly to work in Toronto, Jean-Marc sets out to reorder things with his daughters, his social life, and at work. In a world that at best is a farce, does he stand a chance?
Footage of Québec City locations and the artwork of well-known Quebec animator Frédéric Back are used to tell the tale of Champlain’s life in New France – from his first explorations and settlement to his death in 1635.
Ovide Plouffe has married Rita. She still tries to attract other men even after their marriage. Unhappy Ovide feels for Marie - a young French woman he had met. But his catholic background and surrounding can't let him love another woman or divorce from his wife. So Ovide finishes with Marie and plans a trip with Rita hoping for reconciliation. At the last instant he announces to Rita that he can't make the trip. She goes alone. The plane explodes, and Ovide is suspected and arrested for this horrible crime.
Made shortly after the referendum on Quebec's independence was held, this documentary illustrates what the politicians' promises were and how the population did not really care nor truly understand what was really at stake, even though just about everyone had an opinion on the subject.
A group of actors putting on an interpretive Passion Play in Montreal begin to experience a meshing of their characters and their private lives as the production takes form against the growing opposition of the Catholic church.
This film establishes a parallel between the 1970 electoral campaign in Québec and the 1936 campaign dominated by Maurice Duplessis. It shows the hope but also the uncertainty that existed in 1970. Had the Quiet Revolution really changed things in Québec? Was it possible that a new leader would emerge on the political scene? (NFB.ca)
In an era of political correctness, identity evolution, protests, cultural scandals, activism, media storms, and other disputes, an elderly man no longer having faith in humanity, discovers new landmarks and thus his happiness.
In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', 50-something Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. He decides to make amends meet to his friends and family before he dies. He first tries to made peace with his ex-wife Louise, who asks their estranged son Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the entire Canadian system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while he also tries to reunite his former friends, Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude to see their old friend before he passes on.
An encounter between Russian and American volleyball teams, presented more as an essay in the choreography of the players' movements than as a play-by-play report of a sports event. Various camera tricks are used to dramatize the action, notably stop-motion, that freezes the ballet-like leaps and postures of the players. The film has jazz background music. -NFB
Also Directed by Patricia Rozema
In the not too distant future, two young women who live in a remote ancient forest discover the world around them is on the brink of an apocalypse. Informed only by rumor, they fight intruders, disease, loneliness & starvation.
The Hunger is a British/Canadian television horror anthology series, co-produced by Scott Free Productions, Telescene Film Group Productions and the Canadian pay-TV channel The Movie Network. Though it shares a title with the feature film The Hunger the series has no direct plot or character connection to the film, and was created by Jeff Fazio. Originally shown on the Sci Fi Channel in the UK, The Movie Network in Canada and Showtime in the US, the series was broadcast from 1997 to 2000, and is internally organized into two seasons. Each episode was based around an independent story introduced by the host; Terence Stamp hosted each episode for the first season, and was replaced in the second season by David Bowie. Stories tended to focus on themes of self-destructive desire and obsession, with a strong component of soft-core erotica; popular tropes for the stories included cannibalism, vampires, sex, and poison.
A festival is a concentration of hope. Audiences hungering for something startingly new, famously familiar or just plain "good". Actors hoping their well-conceived sincerity and ritual entrances have that special glow. Press and critics poised to love or hate lucidly. And proud, desperate filmmakers looking for that little blessing on their latest self-projection. All squeezing together for a few days, in a few rooms wondering whether this will truly be the perfect place at the perfect time. Of course, it rarely is. Mostly it's just a collection of almosts. Delicious, shared almosts.
Norm, a confused young man, lives two lives, one in and one out of reality. One night, he witnesses the murder of rock video star Madelaine X and feels guilty, as he did nothing to prevent it. At Madelaine’s funeral, he meets a mysterious woman in black. Norm then gets a job at a news stand through a Cindy Lauper like girl called Zelda. They discuss the mystery around Madelaine’s death.
Awkward, shy and delightfully funny, Polly Vandersma is an "organizationally impaired" temporary assistant who finally gets her first permanent job at the age of 31. While she works for the curator of an art gallery, Polly narrates her own story, sharing the comical and bittersweet pretensions of the art world. At the same time, she reveals a special part of her own private world, taking the viewer to enchanted places in this quiet assault on the notion of authority everywhere.
Happy Days is an adaptation of Samuel Beckett's challenging absurdist drama, a play most would deem unfilmable. Faithfully adhering to Beckett's minimalist original, a black parody of love, marriage, and our search for meaning in an unfathomable universe, the piece consists of but two pathetic characters. One, wife Winnie, spends the duration of the drama half-buried in a pile of dirt; in true Beckett fashion, her predicament is never explained. The other character, husband Willie, is almost never seen. Dublin stage and screen veteran Rosaleen Linehan, in the lead, is exceptional as the trapped woman clinging to the empty, arbitrary routines and rituals of life, ever hopeful that 'this is going to be a happy day.
The Great Depression hits home for nine year old Kit Kittredge when her dad loses his business and leaves to find work. Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin stars as Kit, leading a splendid cast in the first ever "American Girl" theatrical movie. In order to keep their home, Kit and her mother must take in boarders - paying house - guests who turn out to be full of fascinating stories. When mother's lockbox containing all their money is stolen, Kit's new hobo friend Will is the prime suspect. Kit refuses to believe that Will would steal, and her efforts to sniff out the real story get her and friends into big trouble. The police say the robbery was an inside job, committed by someone they know. So if it wasn't Will, then who did it.
This fun and sexy comedy tells a timelessly entertaining story where wealthy, secret passions and mischievous women put love to the test.. When a spirited young woman, Fanny Price, is sent away to live on the great country estate of her rich cousins, she's meant to learn the ways of proper society. But while Fanny learns "their" ways, she also enlightens them with a wit and sparkle all her own!
A prudish woman working on tenure as a literacy professor at a large urban university finds herself attracted to a free-spirited, liberal woman who works at a local carnival.
Based on a stage play of the same name by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, the story follows Cassandra as she tries to organize the affairs for her mother’s funeral.
Also Directed by Atom Egoyan
Egoyan juxtaposes home-video images of his son Arshile with a self-portrait of the famed Armenian artist, Arshile Gorky; Egoyan narrates in English, while his wife narrates in Armenian. The self-portrait made from a photo of the artist as a child at the time of the great massacre of the Armenians is used as a focus for meditations on the nature of self-awareness, artistic expression, and the relationship between the artist and the viewer.
An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.
An anthology film following different stories around the theme of invisibility in the modern world.
With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.
A documentary about a journey to Beirut
An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
A man uses an instant photo booth with bizarre results.
Short telefilm.
A variety of characters, some close relatives, others distant strangers, are each affected by the making of a film about the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Also Directed by Léa Pool
Aïcha is a troubled teenage girl who cannot forgive her mother for kicking out the stepfather she adored. Aïcha longs for him to come back and take her away. When she meets Baz, a man twice her age, it’s love at first sight for her; the real kind, the one that hurts. Baz wants to help this lost little girl, but she wants much more from him, and is ready to do anything to get it.
In this ode to resilience and life, Jean decides to set off on a one-way trip to a country destroyed by war with a minimum of luggage and a drill. But nothing is going exactly as planned. His despair quickly strikes him as derisory in the face of the fate of those who welcome him, clinging to the slightest hope of reconstruction. Upon contact with them, the urgency to end it no longer becomes so pressing, to the point where Jean little by little rediscovers a meaning in his existence.
As the paramedics pry her hand apart from her dead lover's grip a woman's life flashes before her eyes. Racing to the hospital the stunning skies and rooftops of Montreal from the back of the ambulance are inter-cut with the most exquisitely cinematic memories.
Based on a true story, The Blue Butterfly tells the story of a terminally ill 10-year-old boy whose dream is to catch the most beautiful butterfly on Earth, the mythic and elusive Blue Morpho. His mother persuades a renowned entomologist to take them on a trip to the jungle to search for the butterfly, leading to an adventure that will transform their lives
A coming-of-age tale centered around Hannah, a young girl who is living a troubled family life. Set in 1963, Hannah develops a fascination with Jean-Luc Godard's then-recent film "Vivre sa vie". As she begins to model herself after the film's lead role, Hannah slowly begins to explore the confusing nature of her sexuality.
Pierre is a Montreal photojournalist who returns from Nicaragua to find that his ten-year menage a trois is over. Haunted by his mid-life crisis, he becomes obsessed with trying to find out why his two lovers, Sarah and David, have left him.
The nuns of a musical convent work hard in order to prevent the religious school from closing.
Christmas approaches and the Lévesque family has once again gathered for their traditional celebration. But this time there is a mixture of emotions running through each person. The patriarch of the family suffers from a combination of Parkinson’s Disease and heart failure. His life reduced in every way, the end approaches and there are unhappy memories of his once violent and authoritarian past. But his wife, ten children and many grandchildren try to maintain a semblance of the Christmas season.
Summer 1966. It's time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Teenage Élise discovers that the sudden departure of her mother completely disrupts the family. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.
Also Directed by Michel Brault
A fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.
In the film, produced for the series "Young Scientists", for the CBC, a group of young people on vacation share the discovery of the application of the lever in some applications of everyday life.
Morbihan is one of the poorest regions in Brittany. Joseph, a 33-year-old farmer, can no longer live off the land. He is hired at the fancy new plant that has just opened where he enters a world of rote work. Fortunately he can go home to his farm every evening, far from the large urban centers where workers must usually live.
Two teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love.
They come in high-powered convertibles, with cameras and curiosity, to look at French Canada and French-Canadians. Their usual objective is Québec City, where they can soak up a bit of French culture without a trip to France. With an eye for humour, VISIT TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY shows the people of Québec taking a look at American tourists who have come to Québec to take a look at them.
At the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.
In the late 1960s, with the triumph of bilingualism and biculturalism, New Brunswick's Université de Moncton became the setting for the awakening of Acadian nationalism after centuries of defeatism and resignation. Although 40% of the province's population spoke French, they had been unable to make their voices heard. The movement started with students-sit-ins, demonstrations against Parliament, run-ins with the police - and soon spread to a majority of Acadians. The film captures the behind-the-scenes action and the students' determination to bring about change. An invaluable document of the rebirth of a people.
Taking the form of a conversation between a young teacher at a French school in Moncton and her students, the film shows how hard it is for francophones to preserve their language in a society where English is everywhere and has been for centuries.
Poetry and cinema merge as 11 filmmakers bring to life 21 poems by Quebecois poets.
Also Directed by Jacques Leduc
In a very traditional and popular setting, this documentary follow Willie Lamothe who becomes a national icone aftera 25 years career. The film follows the stars through is retelling of his career, his private life and his shows. It also follows testimonies from his fans and friends. Finaly, it his full of Willie Lamothe's music.
"Montréal under the snow and the cold winter. It is the period of the year when the garage owners strike it rich. The automobile at the service of man? This small opus would rather show the contrary. This is one in a series of eight films titled “Chronicle of Everyday Life,” a project that filmmaker Jacques Leduc took four years to realize, and whose goal was to revisit Direct Cinema at a moment when it was already heavily “contaminated” by mainstream TV." - Anthology Film Archives
Jacques Leduc directed and co-scripted (with Jacques Marcotte) this Canadian-French co-production, a drama about an aging Montreal woman, Caroline (Annie Girardot), in her 60s and contemplating impending death. She destroys old correspondence, cleans her apartment by putting furniture in the street, and looks back on her life (as revealed via flashbacks and a film crew interviewing her daughters). Caroline's brief marriage to an Englishman gave her one daughter, successful businesswoman Rachel (Domini Blythe), and an affair with a rebel in the Congo resulted in her other daughter Myriam (Sheila Rose). Further memories rise to the surface when Caroline joins her long-time friend Maureen (France Castel) for a black-tie reception where their community work in Africa brings them an Order of Canada award.
A docudrama on the closing of the town of Schefferville. When Raoul loses his job at the mine because the operations are ending, he's been settled there for ten years with Carmen and their son. They're now forced to leave the town, leaving behind the traces of an ephemeral prosperity.
The six members of the working-class Bessette family each mimic a certain stage of the life of the iconic Brother André and are an incarnation of his values and characteristics.
Pierre is in love with two women and has a stable relationship with both of them. His wife, all by herself, makes him feel whole. However, he has the identical feeling with his librarian mistress and cannot understand why this arrangement shouldn't be satisfactory for everyone concerned.
A day in the life of a Quebec magazine writer - his fortieth birthday - from his dream before waking to his last act before sleeping. He looks back over his life, his thoughts, and his loves.
A lonely woman spends the winter isolated and reminiscing about the past as she waits for her husband to return from a prolonged absence.