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Young Plato
QUEBEC PREMIERE Young Plato charts the dream of Elvis-loving school headmaster Kevin McArevey – a maverick who is determined to change the fortunes of an inner-city community plagued by urban decay, sectarian aggression, poverty and drugs. The all-boys primary school in post-conflict Belfast, Northern Ireland, becomes a hot house for thinking and questioning, as the...
La parfaite histoire
The Perfect Story offers a riveting, intimate look at the ethical and moral challenges sparked by the relationship between a foreign correspondent and a young Somali refugee. By revealing the boundaries of journalism and filmmaking, the film questions what stories are told, why, and who gets to tell them. DGC Best Canadian Documentary Feature Grand...
Je pleure dans ma tête
How can refugee children integrate into Quebec’s school system, given the unspeakable violence they’ve experienced? Following a psychologist specializing in conflict-related trauma, Unspoken Tears pays tribute to the admirable resilience and survival strategies of these “small adults”, whose spirit the bombs and camps have not completely crushed, at a time when it is vital to...
The Colour of Ink
The Colour of Ink uncovers the mystery and power of our oldest medium through the eyes of Jason Logan, a Toronto inkmaker. Harvesting colours from the natural world (weeds, berries, bark, flowers, rocks, rust) he makes ink from just about anything. Official Selection – Toronto International Film Festival – 2022 Jury Award for Best Documentary...
Au-delà du papier
At a critical moment in the history of the written word, as humanity’s archives migrate to the cloud, one filmmaker goes on a journey around the globe to better understand how she can preserve her own Romanian and Armenian heritage, as well as our collective memory. Blending the intellectual with the poetic, she embarks on...
Writing with Fire
QUEBEC PREMIERE Audience Award – World Cinema Documentary – Sundance Film Festival – 2021World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award – Impact and Change – Sundance Film Festival – 2021Special Jury Prize – Documentary Competition – Seattle International Film Festival – 2021 In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, emerges India’s only newspaper run by Dalit (‘low caste’) women. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions, be it on the frontlines of India’s biggest issues or within the confines of their homes, redefining what it means to be powerful.
Debout les femmes!
Nominee – Best Documentary Film – César – 2022 In this new journey, Ruffin & Perret embarks us across France to meet caretakers at the front lines during the current Covid-19 crises. Those people, mostly women, who give their lives, their time and often their health to help and care for elders, disabled and left out are in fact left aside by the French social regulations. No minimum wage, no work-time limitation, no social recognition force them to stand up for their basic rights!
Chère Audrey
IN PRESENCE OF THE DIRECTOR (SATURDAY AND MONDAY)AND MARTIN DUCKWORTH (SATURDAY) People’s Choice Award – RIDM (Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal) 2021 In Dear Audrey, filmmaker Jeremiah Hayes is a witness to the most important work of Martin Duckworth’s life – caring for his wife Audrey after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and helping his 45-year old daughter, Jacqueline, who has autism, maintain a relationship with her mom. Jacqueline has cut herself off from Audrey, unable to watch her own mother slowly inch towards death. Remembering their life through the lens of his second love of filmmaking, Martin’s commitment and grace in the face of Audrey’s illness is almost palpable. A celebrated filmmaker with 100 documentary films to his credit, as a cinematographer and director, Martin’s cinematic signature is beauty in the ordinary and the extraordinary. In Dear Audrey, Jeremiah will mirror this tradition in the poetry and pain of a life well lived.
Little Palestine, journal d’un siège
Official Selection – Vancouver International Film Festival – 2021 Official Selection – RIDM – 2021 Official Selection – ACID Cannes – 2021 Interreligious Award – Visions du Réel – 2021 The district of Yarmouk (Damascus, Syria) sheltered the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world from 1957 to 2018. When the Syrian revolution broke out, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad saw Yarmouk a refuge of rebels and resistance, and set up a siege from 2013 on. Gradually deprived of food, medicine and electricity, Yarmouk was cut of the rest of the world. Abdallah Al-Khatib was born in Yarmouk and lived there until his expulsion by Daesh in 2015. Between 2011 and 2015, he and his friends documented the daily life of the besieged inhabitants, who decided to face bombing, displacement and hunger with rallying, study, music, love and joy. Hundreds of lives that were irremediably transformed by war and siege, from Abdallah’s mother who turned into a nurse taking care of the elders of the camp, to the fiercest activists whose passion for Palestine got gradually undermined by hunger…
Kímmapiiyipitssini : la voie de l’empathie
Rogers Audience Award for Canadian Feature Documentary – Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto (2021)Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director – DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver (2021)Audience Choice Award – Canadian Documentary Feature – CIFF Calgary International Film Festival, Calgary (2021) Kímmapiiyipitssini (Blackfoot)GEE-maa-bee-bit-sin — giving kindness to each other. Elle–Máijá Tailfeathers’ film witnesses radical and profound change in her community. Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is an intimate portrait of survival, love and the collective work of healing in the Kainai First Nation in Southern Alberta, a Blackfoot community facing the impacts of substance use and a drug-poisoning epidemic. Community members active in addiction and recovery, first responders and medical professionals implement harm reduction to save lives. This work is contextualized within the historical and contemporary impacts of settler colonialism; Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy draws a connecting line between the effects of colonial violence on Blackfoot land and people and the ongoing substance-use crisis. Held in love and hope for the future, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy asks the audience to be a part of this remarkable change with the community.