Paul Berval
Native Americans clash with the Canadian government as they struggle for independence in this factual Canadian drama set in Quebec during the summer of 1990. Eddie Laroche, a rebellious native leader spawned a national crises when he and his supporters declared the independence of Aki territory in a far-flung area of northern Quebec. He refused to negotiate without the presences of television cameras to record his people's plight. Jean Fontaine was the reporter assigned to the story and much of the film is told from his viewpoint. To reach Laroche's land, negotiators, government officials, and the film crew had to travel by boat. Fontaine is initially cynical and reluctant to do the story, but after he spends time on the boat interviewing it's passengers, his cynicism has dissolves and he realizes he is faced with the presentations of a terribly complex situation. His dilemma provides a main focus for the film.
Florent Boissonneault and his young wife Elise always had one dream: own a restaurant. When they meet a strange old man, Egon Ratablavasky, their dream become reality, but only to quick turn into a nightmare when they sadly discover they had been tricked by him, and lost everything. But their dream is not dead, and a strong desire of avenging soon bring them back in business, with the help of an homeless kid, a french cook and a friendly journalist. But the old man still had trick on for them his bag...
The lives of the average Quebecois Plouffe family during the final years of the depression and through World War II.
When Santa has an accident at Fred's house on Christmas Eve, Fred and Barney have to continue his run for him.
When Charles Le Braque learns that his boss' 17 years old daughter is pregnant, he fears that his 16 years old nice Joel from France, who's spending her vacation with them in Canada, might fall into the same trap. So he and his wife decide to give her the lecture of plants and bees... but it turns out that she's already well informed, gives them a lecture about simultaneous orgasms. She inspires the sexually repressed couple to start experimenting with "modern" forms of sex.
In Montréal, Jean-Pierre is fired on the set of a TV commercial where he's an apprentice technician. He's penniless, behind on his rent, with a thin resume and no college units. He has a fiancée, Michelle, but his head is turned by a free-spirited model, from the U.S., who saw him being fired and comes to his flat to apologize. She's Elizabeth, a combination of feckless innocence and sexual freedom. Jean-Pierre borrows money from his outlaw friend, Dock, and buys clothes to impress Elizabeth. Soon he's sleeping with her, and he pulls a theft with Dock to get money to take her to Acapulco. Michelle tries to bring him back to her orbit. Is there a way out for Jean-Pierre?
A martian comes to a small town in Quebec and becomes friends with the town children. He gives them candy to get the children into his spacecraft. This alarms the parents but he wins them over and they have a great big Christmas party.
An example of 1970's Maple Syrup cinema from Quebec, this whimsical and sexy tale revolves around two trickster roommates and the women in their lives who want to see them settle down.
An unemployed man with individualist and pacifist values is inevitably brainwashed by society and the mass media to conform to the dominant ideology and embrace war. His soul is destroyed but his heart cannot be conquered.
A tiny Quebec community is thrown into an uproar when a tall young Texan named Bill arrives to claim a farm he has inherited. Bill's inability to speak French, and his apparent unwillingness to learn the language, foments plenty of ill will in the community. The story is resolved with an abundance of warmth and humor, sometimes hokey, sometimes hilarious.
