Every day, on the streets of Canada's cities, we pass them on our way to work or school. Bums, beggars, winos, bag people we call them. But who is the person at the end of that outstretched arm? What is life on the street really like? Is there a way off the street? For six years, director Daniel Cross followed the lives of three homeless men who spent much of their time in and around a Montreal subway station. Filmed in a cinema verité style, the film is unique: it humanizes the homeless, breaking down the barrier between us and them, neither moralizing nor offering easy answers. This is a gritty, compelling look at life on the streets that moves beyond the media stereotypes to show both the humanity of the homeless and the street-toughened aspects of their existence.
Today it is the city of Montreal, but 3 centuries ago the tiny band of missionary founders called it Ville-Marie, the holy city of Mary. This film goes back to its beginning and those who felt called to plant an oasis of Christianity in the North American wilderness. In an imaginative, at times almost surrealistic, way the film recalls the highborn company from France, and shows what survives of Ville-Marie in the Montreal of today.
A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.
Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.
Traces the lives of the Hartings, a blind Montreal family of three who make their living singing in the city's subway stations. The Hartings lost their only sighted child Hassan in a tragic drowning accident, and have since turned to the teachings of Russian mystic Grigori Grabovoi, hoping to resurrect their son. Resurrecting Hassan is an exploration of this family's legacy of grief, tragedy and abuse; the film will follow them on their path to redemption.
Montreal — one of the few remaining affordable cities in North America — is now in the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis. An intimate portrait of socio-political resistance, this multilayered film explores the human impact of real estate speculation on the cities of tomorrow.
This documentary let us to relive the challenge of the men behind the 1967 Universal Exposition in Montréal, Canada. By searching trough 80,000 archival documents at the national Archives, they managed to bring light on one of the biggest logistical and political challenges that were faced by organizers during the "Révolution Tranquille" in the Québec sixties. Includes the accounts of the Chief of Advertising Yves Jasmin, and businessman Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien.
It's a sensitive, moving doc chronicling the life of Tétrault's brother Philip , a Montreal poet, musician and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. A promising athlete as a child, Philip began experiencing mood swings in his early 20s. His extended family, including his daughter, share their conflicted feelings love, guilt, shame, anger with the camera. They want to make sure he's safe, but how much can they take?
Anna, a twelve-year-old Ukrainian gymnast, has fled her war-torn country and recently settled in Montreal with her mother, younger brother, and grandmother. Confronted by the past, the challenges of exile, and a deep need for belonging, she seeks to rebuild her identity and regain her balance. Through her child’s perspective, the documentary explores the reality of life after war, questioning what endures and what is missing, even when one has found refuge.
This short film is a series of vignettes of life in Saint-Henri, a Montreal working-class district, on the first day of school. From dawn to midnight, we take in the neighbourhood’s pulse: a mother fussing over children, a father's enforced idleness, teenage boys clowning, young lovers dallying - the unposed quality of daily life.
La langue est donc une histoire d'amour
An immersive dive into the world of Heenok and his collective Gangster & Gentleman, while touching on broader questions about the survival of hip-hop and the state of humanity. Did Roi Heenok really earn his first million at 18? Is he a real fake gangster or a fake real MC? And ultimately, is Roi Heenok truly a king?
Climb aboard the illustrious Bernina Express for a festive ride through spectacular Alpine landscapes, taking in snow-covered peaks, architectural wonders, and majestic glaciers.
Roach and Starbuck, two hardcore punks from Montreal, try to form their own political party, but run out of time due to Canada's electoral process. Instead, they decide to campaign for political office as independent candidates in a rich Montreal district called Outremont.
Famed Swiss architect and artist Robert Maillart was renowned for his concrete bridges; this documentary examines the elegant design of his engineering masterpieces, which, the film argues, embrace both functionality and aesthetics. Instead of following a traditional journalistic structure, director Heinz Emigholz's spellbinding film reads more like ethereal visual poetry, allowing the beauty of Maillart's work to speak for itself.
This feature documentary studies the different faces of Montreal’s Greek community in 1969. Instead of giving voice to the businessmen and well-integrated few, the film highlights the cultural and economic problems encountered by new immigrants and their families.
The Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing is one of the most famous bridges in China. It is also the most popular place in the world to commit suicide. For the past 11 years Chen Si has been patrolling this bridge, looking to provide aid for those who've gone there to end their lives. Incredibly, he has saved over 300 people since he began - nearly one every two weeks.
La Coupe Stanley à Montréal en 1993
In 1994, the Montreal Expos held the best record in baseball until the mid-August strike and the entire post-season was cancelled. The team never found success again, and in 2004, the franchise was forced to leave Montreal and move to Washington. This film provides access to powerful behind-the-scenes footage – ranging from the players’ bus ride to the stadium, to their emotional reactions stepping onto the field, to the Montreal fans who have never forgotten baseball’s best team in 1994. Interviews with media who followed the team’s season and discussions with former coaches and players will paint both a thrilling and heartbreaking picture of the influential ‘94 Montreal Expos – a groundbreaking squad whose legacy lives on in Montreal
A film that uses literary, structural, autobiographical, and performance metaphors to construct a series of tableaux that evoke the act of vision, the limits of perception, and the rapture of space.