Belle famille

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).

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.

"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

"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

"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

Michel Brault, l'instinct de vue

La meilleure façon, c'est par accident

The second film in a series of documentary and journalistic films about Russia. This is an impartial and friendly story about how the capital of Russia lives, works, studies and relaxes, seen through the eyes of a foreigner. The film's host, American actor Jed Allan, familiar to many Russians for his role as CC Capwell in the TV series Santa Barbara, travels around the multimillion-dollar metropolis, accompanied by the Russian actor and athlete Alexander Nevsky. The presenters of the film are equally interested in the opinions of representatives of the modern elite and ordinary citizens. The daily life of the city is the main interest of the film's authors; the faces snatched by the cameraman from the Moscow crowd are his main characters. The idea of the film is to show modern Moscow as one of the brightest, most beautiful and most dynamically developing cities in the world.

Maremoto (Mar) is a young illustrator in Mexico City struggling to make sense of a town where 11 women are murdered daily, and 95,000 people have gone missing, with no one held accountable. Her feminist drawings support her community in dealing with the emotional trauma left by the femicides and galvanize them to fight to get the government forces to act. With her work, Mar also creates a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community and teaches self-acceptance."

Why do we cry? Can men cry too? When are tears acceptable and when are they not?

Examines laughter, its representation in film and its day to day function. Well known people from various backgrounds discuss the issue and what it means to them.

People who have experienced fear - those involved in the peace movement, a child, a politian and a film director - discuss the psychological and physical aspects of this emotion.

Explores rage, its function and its representation in film. Why does rage occur, how does it differ between people and how do children feel about it? Also questions if rage can ever be a constructive emotion.

Four young people pinpoint the attitudes that have contributed to the phenomenon of swinging London.

After delivery of a parcel, on leaving a restaurant, hotel or train, or following an exchange with the customer service department of your telephone operator, the same request: to rate. On a scale from 0 to 10, embellished with colors, or by awarding pretty, playful little stars. A simple, mechanical and painless action for the rater. But behind this harmless gesture lies a brutal management system, operated directly by the customer, without their knowledge. Even more worrying: without knowing it, we are all being rated, to feed the algorithms of opaque companies that claim to be able to predict the future. The film questions this invasion of rating systems, and the consequences of this practice for our individual realities and collective freedoms.

Lorraine Kelly returns to the small Scottish border town of Lockerbie to find out how the residents coped with the aftermath of Europe's deadliest terror attack. Lorraine was one of the first TV reporters to arrive at the scene after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded mid-air, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. Before the police cordoned off the area, she saw first-hand the shocking aftermath of the disaster.

Hitch a ride with a glamorous blonde in a convertible sports car, and take a spin around the seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare and its surroundings.

The brilliant self-taught pianist Erroll Garner left his mark on jazz forever. His song Misty, which he allegedly composed between two concerts on an aeroplane, immediately became one of the great jazz standards and is still one of the most covered ballads in the world today. Who was the man behind the ever-friendly smile from the ghettos of Pittsburgh, whose talent brought him to the biggest international stages?

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