Denys Arcand
Brother Marie-Victorin, founder of Montreal’s Botanical Garden, is bored with heaven and decides to return earth to help former agronomist turned beekeeper Albert save Quebec’s flora from a multinational that is poisoning the Earth with chemicals.
A shy and insecure delivery truck driver accidentally arrives on the scene of a major crime and happens to pick up two bags of cash and hides them in his truck. Though an interrogation of two tough police detectives isn't enough, the guy, who has a doctor's degree in philosophy which makes his mind mingle with remorse, must find a way to get rid of this dirty money. Only the help of a prostitute and a former biker who came out of jail might get him out of trouble, especially that a gang leader is very weary to get his cash back or kill whoever is responsible for this mess. However, even the two bumbling detectives are monitoring the case as well.
In 1940s Montreal, a young man wrestles with his emotions for his domineering twin sister and his best friend's girlfriend.
Artist and writer Marc Séguin offers his first film which is about a woman named Alice who steals paintings in order to reattribute them to people who can truly appreciate their beauty.
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?
M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?
This compelling documentary explores Canadian film culture and tries to discover what defines Canadian film through interviews with notable filmmakers.
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.
Dreary urban landscape of an anonymous Canadian city. Dark comedy about a group of twentysomethings looking for love and meaning in the '90s. The film focuses on roommates David, a gay waiter who has has given up on his acting career, and Candy, a book reviewer who is also David's ex-lover. David and Candy's lives are entangled with those of David's friends and Candy's dates.
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.
Features clips from 21 documentary and animation film classics, interviews with NFB filmmakers past and present, and incisive commentary from film critics and historians on the role and influence of the NFB during its first half century of existence.
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.
Marcel, recently released from prison, attempt to rebuild his relationship with his girlfriend Julie (now a prostitute) and especially his father Albert (who thinks he's been away on a long trip abroad), while being pursued by two corrupt cops (one of whom bears a longstanding grudge against him) for drug money he's alleged to possess.
Four very different Montreal university teachers gather at a rambling country house to prepare a dinner. Remy (married), Claude (a homosexual), Pierre (involved with a girlfriend) and Alain (a bachelor) discuss sex, the female body and their affairs with them. Meanwhile, their four female guests, Louise (Remy's wife of 15 years), Dominique (a spinster), Diane (a divorcée) and Danielle (Pierre's girlfriend) are spending the time at a downtown health gym. They also discuss sex, the female body and, naturally, men. Later in the evening, they finally meet at the country house and have dinner. A ninth guest, named Mario, who used to know Diane, drops in on the group for some talk and has a surprise of his own.
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.
Duplessis was a historical television series in Quebec, Canada, that aired in 1978. It tells the story of Maurice Duplessis, the controversial premier of Quebec from 1936 to 1939 and 1944 to 1959. It is one of the most famous mini-series in Quebec television history. The series was written by Oscar-winning film director Denys Arcand, and based in large part on Conrad Black's popular biography. The series contains 7 episodes, each one containing a different historic moment in Duplessis's life and path into power. Duplessis is portrayed by Jean Lapointe. It is distributed by Radio-Canada and is available on DVD.
Director Denys Arcand made an inquiry on textile industry in Quebec, meeting employers and workers of that industry.
Normande St-Onge works as a clerk in a pharmacy and takes dance classes with the dream of being a cabaret dancer. Her mother, Berthe, has been confined to a mental institution by Normande's uncle, the wealthy lawyer Jean-Paul. But Normande, who does not believe her mother is insane, kidnaps her from the institution and brings her home. Also living with them is Normande's sister Pierette, who has asthma and a drug addiction, Normande's boyfriend Bouliane, who is unemployed and in no hurry to find a job, and a strange young magician named Carol she took in after he was kicked out of his home. All of these people depend on Normande in various ways and exploit her; Normande, desperate to be loved, is driven mad by the demands of her parasite family. When she receives an eviction notice stating that the building will be demolished and rebuilt into a restaurant, it all becomes too much for Normande and her mind retreats into fantasy to protect her from the harsh realities.
The unexpected return of his ex-wife and the assembly of a group of protesters both threaten to wreck a corrupt contractor's inauguration party for his new superhighway.
The true identity of an undercover RCMP narcotics agent is discovered by the criminals he is investigating and his family pays the price.
This French-Canadian crime/action drama, which satirizes U.S. crime films, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972 and was well received. In the picture, perfectly ordinary people murder, steal, and torture one another with casual abandon in order to solve their everyday problems.
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)
A young singer-songwriter abandons his life in his hometown and moves to the city to make it big. He achieves fame, but it comes at a price.
1966 PARCS ATLANTIQUES Best Short Film Award, UNESCO, Brussels, 1967 An exploration of three of Canada's national parks: Fundy, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton Highlands, all on the Atlantic coast, where, by filmmaker's licence, boy meets girl, marries and has a family, all while enjoying the parks' many facilities for campers. Even the girl's little white car, which leads us to the parks at the outset, seems to run on the pure air and the anticipation of fresh adventures around every turn. - NFB
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
Today it is the city of Montreal, but 3 centuries ago the tiny band of missionary founders called it Ville-Marie, the holy city of Mary. This film goes back to its beginning and those who felt called to plant an oasis of Christianity in the North American wilderness. In an imaginative, at times almost surrealistic, way the film recalls the highborn company from France, and shows what survives of Ville-Marie in the Montreal of today.
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.
The story of a young university student who deals with love in the midst of the Quebec separatist movement in the 1960s.
From dawn to night, Montreal is a living reality, with many faces, many occupations, and the uncertain and blurred colors of industrial cities. The film illustrates different aspects of this reality: the cosmopolitan Montreal, the anthropological Montreal and the plastic Montreal. Images: Electric wires; poles; view of houses and cars; airplane; bridge; men working on construction; mechanical crane pulley; mechanical crane in the street; men walking on constructions (scaffolding); skyscraper; park; lovers lying in the grass; canoe; children in a park; children on a boat; sailboats; bathers; factory chimney; quarry; CN locomotive; public market; traffic of cars and pedestrians; lights shining in the evening; fireworks
