Mathieu Bouchard-Malo

Seventeen-year-old Jeff is invited by his friend Max’s family to stay at the wilderness lodge of film director Blake Cadieux.

After the impressive Gulistan, Land of Roses (VdR 2016), the Kurdish filmmaker Zaynê Akyol returns with these conversations with imprisoned members of the Islamic State, alternating their words with aerial views of the countryside. An unexpected look at a far-reaching current political issue and a film whose subject matter and rhythm create an impressive cinematic object.

The story of Vincent Lacroix, a businessman convicted of defrauding thousands of investors and embezzling over $130 million in mid-2000s Quebec, Canada. Inspector and auditor Éric Asselin is mandated to monitor the activities of the Norbourg firm. Literally fascinated by the audacity of Vincent Lacroix, the investigator leaves his post and becomes his right hand man. Norbourg then thwarts the investigations and checks by embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars. But the party can't last forever when the company is surrounded from all sides.

May 20, 1980. After his father's passing, Raymond Tremblay, tax investigator, begins to suspect the funeral home of fraudulent activities. Accompanied by his daughter, little Lucy, he decides to go investigate in his native Saguenay against the backdrop of a referendum on Quebec's sovereignty.

In a near future, a callous smuggler hardened by life guides a pious young woman and her child across the border to safety, unaware that their destinies are inescapably linked in this inhospitable land.

The night is falling and Montreal is under the snow. People line up at the lost and found office of the city’s transit company. They all have lost something, which, upon reflection, becomes the symbol of a deeper loss. Prayer for a Lost Mitten is a creative documentary by turns melancholic and festive, yet ever compassionate. A film that helps us get through the winter.

Hyo-Jin attends the funeral of her younger sister in South Korea, her homeland. Denying the pain caused by her loss, she decides to shorten her stay in Korea and swiftly returns home to Montreal. But her sister’s death disturbs her daily life, triggering irrational thoughts despite her scientific and pragmatic spirit.

Emma had a c-section. She didn’t see her son when he was born. When she finally meets him, she doesn't recognize her baby. How could she? Little by little, mother and child fall in love. The Cut delicately explores the complexity of the bond between mother and child.

Three teenagers are shaken up by their first loves in the turmoil of their youth. At a time when others are conforming, they stand their ground and assert their right to love and be free.

A young man goes to his father's home in Maine where, helped by a public registry, he locates and tracks down sex offenders. In parallel, his mother follows his trail in order to try to understand what could have pushed him into this murderous madness.

As they undergo 12 weeks of intensive training, a group of young civilians is gradually moulded into soldiers. The Basic Training, a prerequisite for joining the Canadian Armed Forces, becomes the gateway to exploring the inner workings of a world governed by its own rules and values.

In the heart of a deep forest runs a river. On its banks, men and women sit and talk, opening up to each other. In this remote setting conducive to reflection, they wonder what it takes to attain inner peace, debate the wisdom of passing something on to future generations and realize that, in love, the perfect ‘soulmate’ is a near-impossible ideal. The sun sets behind the mountains and the swimmers bitterly acknowledge the failure of certain dreams, but still find meaning in contemplating nature, the stars and the moon.

A high-class prostitute by choice, Nelly Arcan’s colorful life is recreated in a multi-layered and stylish mix of make-believe and memoir, revealing Nelly’s alter egos: the neurotic writer, the vulnerable lover, the call girl and the star. Nelly shocked the literary world with her elegant writing and the lurid details of sex work in her autobiographical first novel, Whore, which became a critically acclaimed bestseller. Despite unprecedented success, Nelly’s remarkable life ended in tragedy.

They belong to the armed wing of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is also an active guerrilla movement. The mission of these female fighters? Defend Kurdish territory in Iraq and Syria, and defeat ISIS (the armed militants of the so-called Islamic State group), all while embodying a revolutionary ideal advocating female empowerment. As filmmaker Zaynê Akyol follows their highly regimented lives, seasoned fighters like Rojen and Sozdar openly share with us their most intimate thoughts and dreams. Even as fighting against ISIS intensifies in the Middle East, these women bravely continue their battle against barbarism. Offering a window into this largely unknown world, Gulîstan, Land of Roses exposes the hidden face of this highly mediatized war: the female, feminist face of a revolutionary group united by a common vision of freedom.

While Montreal is in the throes of a string of kidnappings targeting young boys, ten-year-old Felix is finishing his school year in the seemingly quiet suburb where he lives. A sensitive boy with a vivid imagination, Felix is afraid of everything. Little by little, his imaginary demons begin to mirror those of the truly disturbing world around him.

Otherworldly frequencies and textured, fluctuating images beautifully visualize the distress of people who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and who must live in exile from cities in order to find solitude from the noise.

NOIR chronicles the lives of four people living in a neighborhood plagues by poverty and violence, aspiring to freedom and happiness. Kadhafi, a 26 year old aspiring rapper and ex-member of a street gang, just out of prison, wants to steer clear of troubles. Fleur, a 17 year old Haitian mother in an abusive and passionate relationship with her daughter's father, dreams of leaving the ghetto and becoming a nurse. Suzie, a 20 year old stripper who falls for a gang member. Dickens, 16 year old Haitian wants to be part of the street gang controlled by his older brother.

The reality of addiction in a tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.

This animated film is above all a love story told with emotion and delicacy. A man loves a woman; both of them love literature. We discover the murmur of their lives, the harmony of their feelings—and we learn how their affection for novels and poetry marks their existence beyond death. The fruitful alliance of filmmaker Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s imagery and the words of Quebec poet Hélène Dorion results in a subtle, sensitive film that resonates in the viewer’s heart and mind. In its hybridization of styles and techniques, The Day Is Listening is also a most modern and daring work: its director has deftly expanded the spectrum of traditional hand-drawn animation, incorporating mosaics of real images that express a myriad of intertwining memories as well as the pulse of urban life.

Clara and Nikolai meet at a sweat-soaked rave and end their night at his apartment. The first part of the film is an erotic and candid portrait of their lovemaking. When Clara tries to sneak out without saying goodbye, this typical hookup takes an unexpected turn...

On a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships, in the middle of a drought and while the land is parching, a drama will disrupt the life of the Santerre family. Confronted to each other they will have to learn to forgive.

Jo lives in the shadow of his older brother. Amidst a world of delinquency, they become interested in illegal car racing. One night they participate in of them, never reaching the finish line. Jo will become Jonathan.

Hotel-Dieu Hospital in Montreal, one of the oldest in North America. In the emergency ward, patients await their diagnosis, foreshadowed by the most personal questions from doctors. Others don't have the luxury of worrying about such things. They suffer in pain, fight to live or simply want it all to end, despairing at the body's inability to do what it's supposed to. We cannot face disease, much less face those who suffer from it. But what's left of the human once laid out on the operating table, dreading bad news or anticipating the end? Something moving, feeling, loving. The heart that beats.

Deep in the Quebec countryside, a once prosperous motel had fallen into disrepair before being turned into a retirement home. This thoughtful documentary explores the lives of its residents and how aging has altered the meaning of time for them. Quietly and without comment, director Jean-François Caissy follows 24 seniors over the course of five seasons, showing how their daily routines have become both very fixed and incredibly meaningful.

Mamori transports us into a black-and-white universe of fluid shapes, dappled and striated with shadows and light, where the texture of the visuals and of the celluloid itself have been transformed through the filmmaker’s artistry. The raw material of images and sounds was captured in the Amazon rainforest by filmmaker Karl Lemieux and avant-garde composer Francisco López, a specialist in field recordings. Re-filming the photographs on 16 mm stock, then developing the film stock itself and digitally editing the whole, Lemieux transmutes the raw images and accompanying sounds into an intense sensory experience at the outer limits of representation and abstraction. Fragmented musical phrases filter through the soundtrack, evoking in our imagination the clamour of the tropical rainforest in this remote Amazonian location called Mamori.

A young woman taking care of her diabetic father gets involved in a one way relationship. Portrait of a generation about to replace another, Demain is a film based on an inertia marked youth, and on it's precursors confronted to their own disappearance.

An intimate and unflinching look over 12 months at the hardscrabble lives of hustlers in downtown Montreal.

Pierre and Elisabeth, a couple in their thirties, move with their baby into a cottage on a lake for the summer. The setting is idyllic, and the couple’s happiness seems within reach. Every day, Pierre goes to work in the city while Elisabeth rehearses for an upcoming voice recital. Despite the benevolent presence of her mother-in-law who lives in the neighbouring house, the young woman feels isolated and overwhelmed in her new role as a mother. Her entourage is concerned, but no one fully grasps the extent of Elisabeth’s distress. Muted violence soon takes hold and tightens its grip.

Exquisitely filmed in black-and-white, this experimental narrative follows four friends on a road trip as they discover the complicated arena of unseen desire that arises when ecstasy and sexuality mix.

Carl's life boils down to two things: receiving blows and persisting in spite of everything in leading a "normal" existence. Engaged in the army, he hopes to be able to escape this daily life, between a silent grandfather and Cadorette, his childhood friend with whom dialogue seems impossible. One night, following an altercation, Carl and Cadorette miss the last boat to return home. They then decide to cross the river, at all costs…