Michel Giroux

In October 1970, members of the Front de libération du Québec kidnapped Minister Pierre Laporte, triggering an unprecedented crisis in Quebec (Canada). Fifty years later, Félix Rose is trying to understand what could have led his father and uncle to commit such acts.

From Norman McLaren to the Grands Ballets Canadiens, to Igor Stravinsky and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Vincent Warren has made history. Inhabited by the importance of culture in a society, he worked all his life as a 'bearer of beauty'. A MAN OF DANCE is the story of this living legend and its memorable era.

From Norman McLaren to the Grands Ballets Canadiens, to Igor Stravinsky and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Vincent Warren has made history. Inhabited by the importance of culture in a society, he worked all his life as a 'bearer of beauty'. A MAN OF DANCE is the story of this living legend and its memorable era.

Quebec, on the cusp of the 1960s. The province is on the brink of momentous change. Deftly selecting clips from nearly 200 films from the National Film Board of Canada archives, director Luc Bourdon reinterprets the historical record, offering us a new and distinctive perspective on the Quiet Revolution.

A quest across three continents driven by a simple yet original idea: to shine a spotlight on the Davids of this world.

This feature documentary by Jean-Claude Labrecque recounts the bold and astounding enterprise of French filmmaker Julien Duvivier, who shot a film adaptation of Louis Hémon’s classic novel Maria Chapdelaine in Péribonka, a village in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, in 1934. What was the impact of the original film’s production on the life of the community? What memories remain? What town secrets lie hidden in those memories?

Jean-Marc Phaneuf, an unmarried electrical engineer, travels to Burundi as a volunteer for the NGO Radio du Monde. He finds a country ruined by grinding poverty, famine, war, disease and appalling social inequality. At the same time, he meets a joyful, brave people hungry for happiness, knowledge and human dignity. The camera that becomes his personal diary also helps Jean-Marc expose the shaky, ineffective workings of NGOs. His investigations turn up a few praiseworthy examples of international cooperation, but on the whole he finds himself drawn to a terrible, inescapable conclusion: humanitarian aid is a utopian mirage. After falling victim to an attack and losing whatever ideals he still had, Jean-Marc becomes entangled in an impossible relationship. He is ultimately forced to leave Africa in disgrace.

Montreal of another time is reborn into screen through images from a hundred of movies and shorts produced by the National Film Board of Canada while at its first four decades of existence. Port activities, musical shows, presence of Church, labors life, hockey fever and the best years of "Red Light" are few of the chapters of this collective family album.

Two paths cross on a descent into Guatemala's past: that of Mateo Pablo, a Maya survivor of one of many massacres committed by local government troops, and Daniel Hernández-Salazar, a concerned Guatemalan artist and photographer. Together they travel to a remote site in the highlands where the community of Petanac once stood. The bones found there by archaeologists tell a mute story of agony.

"Our apartment was one hundred years old, and it was haunted. Friends suggested that we paint a black spot on the ceiling to get rid of the ghost. She wasn't a bad ghost, she was just an old hooker. She kept turning the front hall light on and off, and opening doors for her johns, who came at all hours of the night. She loved sex and she loved parties, so we were forced to have sex and parties all the time to appease her. Other ghosts were also there: immigrants who spoke neither English nor French. They had come from far away, and longed to return to their homelands. Sometimes they sang sad songs. Shimmer started as their story. My grandmother's story, my parents' story and mine got mixed up with theirs along the way." - Nelson Henricks