Actualités
Sudan, Remember Us
In a Sudan torn apart by years of war, this documentary immerses us in the daily fight of young Sudanese. Their stories, both harrowing and inspiring, remind us of the ability to find hope even in the darkest of circumstances. This documentary is a call to attention to a forgotten crisis, and a tribute to the power of creativity as a tool of survival and resistance. Official selection – TIFF – 2024
Tehachapi
Over three years, French artist JR developed a large-scale artwork in a maximum-security prison in California in collaboration with those incarcerated at the institution. The project shows the power of art as a tool for hope and transformation in a systemically violent carceral system. Well-known for his collages and giving a voice to the marginalized and unseen, JR is also the co-director of the Academy Award-nominated Faces Places with Agnès Varda. Questioning the limits of the US carceral system, Tehachapi is a rare, illuminating and moving feature documentary, showing how art can be a decisive means to reintegration and rehabilitation. Official Selection – Telluride Film Festival – 2023
Time To Work!
Following a heated debate on a French news television channel, Left wing MP François Ruffin defies a TV columnist and attorney, Sarah Saldmann, to work and live one month on the minimum-wage. This humanistic and humoristic documentary highlights the daily struggles and joys of the working-class compared to the fantasy the bourgeoisie has built up in the media. It also raises a thorny question: can the rich be socially reintegrated?
Forêts urbaines
From Montreal to Vancouver by way of Toronto, Laval, Varennes and New Westminster, Urban Forests explores nature-restoration projects in cities across Canada. Painting a portrait of a grassroots movement spanning all generations, the film is nothing less than an antidote to pessimism, proving that the “green shift” is closer than we think. Is the solution...
Wilfred Buck
He’s from the “fresh-out-of-the-bush, partly civilized, colonized, displaced people,” and he’s here to take us to the stars. Lisa Jackson’s portrait of Cree Elder Wilfred Buck moves between earth and sky, past and present, bringing to life ancient teachings of Indigenous astronomy and cosmology to tell a story that spans generations. Adapted from Buck’s rollicking memoir I Have Lived Four Lives, the film weaves together stories from his life, including his harrowing young years of displacement and addiction. Seamlessly fusing present-day scenes with cinematic re-enactments and archival footage, this intimate yet expansive documentary takes us on an inspiring journey to the space beyond, and to the spaces between us all. Top 5 Audience Favorites – Hot Docs – 2024
Les filles d’Olfa
The life of Olfa, a Tunisian woman and mother of four daughters, oscillates between light and shadow. One day, her two eldest daughters disappear. To fill their absence, director Kaouther Ben Hania calls upon professional actors to re-enact the story of Olfa and her daughters. Best documentary film – César – 2024Official Selection – Oscars...
Sur l’Adamant
Follows patients and caregivers at a psychiatric center with a unique floating structure located in the middle of the Seine river in central Paris. Ours d’Or – Festival du film de Berlin – 2022
Éloge de l’ombre
Junichiro Tanizaki’s literary essay In Praise of Shadows, light and dark, and the origins of photography and cinema are among the strands interwoven in this “cinematic meditation” in three chapters. Fleeting shadows ebb and flow in a glistening half-light, an enchanted dreamlike state that reflects on our place in the world, the passage of time,...
Umberto Eco : La bibliothèque du monde
A documentary immersion into all things Eco, Davide Ferrario’s film takes us on a tour of Umberto Eco’s private library, guided by the author himself. Combining new footage with material he shot with Eco in 2015 for a video installation for the Venice Biennale, Ferrario documents this incredible collection and the man who amassed it....
La Mère de tous les mensonges
Young Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir wants to know why she only has one photograph from her childhood, and why the girl in the picture isn’t even her. She decides to explore the past and its mysteries by creating a handmade replica of the Casablanca neighborhood where she grew up. There, she begins to interrogate the tales her mother, father and grandmother tell about their home and their country. Slowly, she starts to unravel the layers of deception and intentional forgetting that have shaped her life. The truth is hard to face, but in this sometimes surreal nonfiction film, El Moudir begins to draw what is real to the surface. Official Selection – Un Certain Regard / Festival de Cannes – 2023 Moroccan cinema is presented in collaboration with the Centre culturel marocain de Montréal.