Belle famille

A documentary about direct-cinema from its very beginnings (Nanook of the North) to the fake-direct-cinema of the Blair Witch Project. All the important direct-cinema filmmakers are portrayed and/or interviewed: Leacock, Wiseman, Maysles, Pennebaker, Reisz and others.

Feature-length documentary as part of Pierre Perrault's Abitibian Cycle. The filmmaker questions the past and present of Abitibi and draws up, face to face, the promises of colonization in the 1930s and the great disappointment caused by the closing of the land in the 1970s. There are witnesses to the heroic era, including the cultivator Hauris Lalancette, as well as extracts from films by Father Maurice Proulx (1934-1940).

"Montréal under the snow and the cold winter. It is the period of the year when the garage owners strike it rich. The automobile at the service of man? This small opus would rather show the contrary. This is one in a series of eight films titled “Chronicle of Everyday Life,” a project that filmmaker Jacques Leduc took four years to realize, and whose goal was to revisit Direct Cinema at a moment when it was already heavily “contaminated” by mainstream TV." - Anthology Film Archives

"This feature documentary is considered to be the forerunner of the NFB's Challenge for Change Program. The film offers in inside look at 3 weeks in the life of the Bailey family. Trouble with the police, begging for stale bread, and the birth of another child are just some of the issues they face. Through it all, the father tries to explain his family's predicament. Although filmed in Montreal, the film offers an anatomy of poverty as it occurs throughout North America." - NFB

"This film is one of the first French Unit productions of the “Société Nouvelle/Challenge for Change” program. When an old area of Montréal is to be demolished to make way for a new low-income housing development, is there anything the residents can do to protect their own interests? The film documents such a situation in the Little Burgundy district of Montréal and shows how the residents organized themselves into a committee that successfully influenced the city’s housing policy." - Anthology Film Archives

"This documentary depicts a canoe being built in the traditional manner. Cesar Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve North of Montréal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots, and gum. With a sure hand he works methodically to fashion a craft unsurpassed in function or beauty of design. Building a canoe solely from the materials that the forest provides may become a lost art, even among the Native Peoples whose traditional craft it is. The film is free of spoken commentary but text appears on the screen in Cree, French, and English." - Anthology Film Archives

Michel Brault, l'instinct de vue

When TV-producer Ragnar Eklund was diagnosed with ALS, humor became a way to deal with his quickly approaching demise.

La Révolution des Œillets

“Alone Again is Fukushima” is the long-awaited sequel to "Alone in Fukushima" (2015), which followed Naoto Matsumura, a man who remained in the nuclear zone in Fukushima to tend animals. The film has followed Naoto for nearly a decade and portrays how Naoto and the animals survived the residents' return to the town, Tokyo Olympics, and COVID-19. In the course of 10 years, many animals and humans were born and died. But Naoto remained in the town and took care of the animals. He raised chickens and kept bees in order to survive. In 2017, Tomioka became the place where people can come back to live, however most young people didn’t return. There is no end in sight for the nuclear crisis in Fukushima. The contaminated water is overflowing and will be pumped out to the ocean soon. Meanwhile the government is trying to restart the nuclear reactors all over the country. The film will give us a chance to reflect on this situation by looking at how Naoto and animals survive in Fukushima.

Ana Blandiana, one of Europe’s most important poets, is a symbol in the fight for democracy and freedom of speech, values again under threat. A history refracted through poetry, 'Between Silence and Sin' explores the power of the word as the last bastion of a nation’s collective soul in the face of oppression.

While the hunt for Lord Lucan has dominated the media for half a century, the name of the victim, Sandra Rivett, has been forgotten.

Michael Kanarek was born in Pittsburgh in 1946, and participated in “Three Rivers Arts Festival”. After graduating High School, He was accepted to Cooper Union Art College. His work was awarded and recognized many times including a Gold Record Award. His story is told in this original documentary with original interviews by Kanarek, his family, close friends, and associates.

In scenes set behind closed doors that play out in real time, a fixed frame on adolescents being addressed by authority figures reveals the complexities of their daily lives. Conversely, seasonal outdoor activities like bridge diving, paintball and snowmobiling test unspoken boundaries of safety and beliefs of invincibility. Caissy masterfully allows silence to permeate scenes so that singular actions have great resonance. Almost half a century after Frederick Wiseman’s High School, Guidelines provides a fresh perspective on modern adolescents. The hairstyles have changed, but the rebelliousness remains.

Forget the pie charts, color-coded maps and hyperventilating pundits. What's the street-level experience of voters in today's America? In a triumph of documentary storytelling, ELECTION DAY combines eleven stories--all shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight--into one. Factory workers, ex-felons, harried moms, Native American activists and diligent poll watchers, from South Dakota to Florida, take the process of democracy into their own hands. The result: an entertaining, inspiring and sometimes unsettling tapestry of citizens determined on one fateful day to make their votes count.

Projectionists, film exhibitors and audiences explain their stories, their misfortunes, passion and selfless lifes; challenging time and conecting past, present and future. '24 Cinemas per Second' tries to show how films exhibition evolves as a consecuence of social changes and daily customs.

Virunga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Africa’s oldest national park, a UNESCO world heritage site, and a contested ground among insurgencies seeking to topple the government that see untold profits in the land. Among this ongoing power struggle, Virunga also happens to be the last natural habitat for the critically endangered mountain gorilla. The only thing standing in the way of the forces closing in around the gorillas: a handful of passionate park rangers and journalists fighting to secure the park’s borders and expose the corruption of its enemies. Filled with shocking footage, and anchored by the surprisingly deep and gentle characters of the gorillas themselves, Virunga is a galvanizing call to action around an ongoing political and environmental crisis in the Congo.

A young man sets out to the small town where his grandfather once lived to learn the story behind his death. There he learns from the town elders not only what happened to his grandfather but stories about old times and the ways the town has changed.

One million people. One voice: stop the nuclear arms race. The largest peace demonstration in history, a magical day when even the police were on the side of the marchers.

This documentary examines the dozens of Yiddish-language talking films made in the United States and Europe between the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927 and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.