Produced in 1988, this feature documentary presents a living history of Quebec's last 40 years as seen through the eyes of one couple. Pauline Julien and Gérald Godin, two Quebec artists, share their perspectives on the events that have marked Quebec's evolution. Julien, a singer, and Godin, a poet, express their love and passion for the province (and each other) while providing a unique take on the Quebec nationalist movement.
J'me marie, j'me marie pas
Artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss create the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. The pair used found objects to construct a complex, interdependent contraption in an empty warehouse. When set in motion, a domino-like chain reaction ripples through the complex of imaginative devices. Fire, water, the laws of gravity, and chemistry determine the life-cycle of the objects. The process reveals a story concerning cause and effect, mechanism and art, and improbability and precision, in an extended science project that will mesmerize the mind.
This short documentary profiles Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in Montreal in 1959. The annual parade takes place every June 24th in memory of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the patron saint of Québec. Candid shots of youngsters preparing their costumes for the festivities are partnered with a lively jazz soundtrack. All the Montrealers and out-of-town tourists featured in this film avidly participate in a public festivity that is dear to their hearts.
L’histoire de la Côte-Nord: une histoire commune
Médecine traditionnelle
In October 1970, members of the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped Minister Pierre Laporte, triggering an unprecedented crisis in Quebec. Fifty years later, Félix Rose tries to understand what could have led his father and uncle to commit such acts. Thanks to the confidences of his uncle Jacques, who agrees for the first time to speak on the subject, and to the precious traces left by his father Paul, he revives the rich heritage of a Quebec working family and gives back to the October crisis its social dimension. The fruit of ten years of research, Les Rose allows us to revive moments and characters that we only knew through a few clichés, and gives a glimpse of the social blockage experienced by a rebellious youth and the upheavals that followed.
Uapishka
Secessionnist movements in Canada outside Quebec.
After spending 4 years in prison for drug trafficking, Dino tastes fame by interpreting the godfather of the mafia in the TV series Omerta. Now 72 years old, he's preparing for a role that could be his last. Somewhere between reality and fiction, My Friend Dino offers a special access to the universe of this likable anarchist.
Loto-Québec : La morale de l'argent
Five women from the North to the South of Quebec embark on a multisport expedition following the Koroc river in Nunavik. Travelling together against adversity, this journey soon becomes one of self-discovery for each participant.
First look inside the walls of Quebec police’s training grounds and the realities of our next generation of police officers.
Qui se souvient de René Lévesque?
Carnival time in Quebec, Canada, is also time for racing with sled-dogs, horse-drawn sleighs, hockey, curling the carving of ice-statues, obstacle races by youngsters, fireworks, and also the selection of a Carnival Queen.
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
Essay-film on a crucial issue: the notion of belonging to a country. Lingered sentimentalism or deep psychological reality if one believes it is rooted in the heart of man? The action here takes place in the context of a nation that seeks: the French Canadians, and other people without a country: the Indians of Quebec, the Bretons of France. And here is the fundamental question posed: what are the "viable" peoples whose "maturity" allows them to "give" the autonomy and territory? And what is the environment that people can call "their country"?
Documentarian Richard Lavoie follows the artists of the Mer Océane symposium which took place on La Grave, in the Magdalen Islands, in 1998.
Anticosti: La chasse au pétrole extrême
The band of American artists known as the New York School toyed with tradition and rebelled against the Renaissance.Feeling as though free association yielded their best results, the painters, poets and performers of the New York School took a surrealist approach that was concerned less with aesthetic and more with expression. Those associated with the School were unified by their desire to create from within. They created a monumental, dramatic art that remains a singular expression of the crucial modern quest for individuality and personal freedom." Never knowing exactly how their pieces would turn out, the artists of the New York School embraced their own complex humanity and worked from a place of bold, sporadic realness.