Colette Loumède

Ninan Auassat: We, the Children

Known for her intimate films, director Kim O’Bomsawin (Call Me Human) invites viewers into the lives of Indigenous youth in this absorbing new documentary. Shot over six years, the film brings us the moving stories, dreams, and experiences of three groups of children and teens from different Indigenous nations: Atikamekw, Eeyou Cree, and Innu. In following these young people through the formative years of their childhood and right through their high school years, we witness their daily lives, their ideas, and aspirations for themselves and their communities, as well as some of the challenges they face.

Imane’s Promise

Imane is a 26-year-old woman who writes a feminist blog in a country where women are viewed as minors for life. Threats and adversity have never prevented her from decrying loud and clear the injustices that have kept women in submission in her country, Algeria. My virtual friend who was telling me about her fights and her life for the last four years was found dead in her apartment in 2019. This film is a posthumous gift to Imane; a way to repair this cruel twist of fate. Her struggles and sacrifices cannot be in vain!

The Apollo of Gaza

In 2013, a 2,000-year-old statue of Apollo was found near Gaza, only to disappear all of a sudden. Apollo, god of art, beauty and divinations, incites all sorts of rumors, even the craziest ones. The Apollo of Gaza is at once an inquiry and a meditation on history, plunging us into the barely known reality of a territory that is still paying the price of wars and a merciless blockade, but where life also subsists, undefeated. By bringing a little light to the sky of Gaza, the statue and its stupefying story could return some dignity and hope to all people.

White Noise

A reflection on the fate of humanity in the Anthropocene epoch, White Noise is a roller-coaster of a film, a whirlwind of sounds and images. The fourth feature-length work by Simon Beaulieu, this film essay plunges viewers into a subjective sensory adventure—a direct physical encounter with the information overload of daily life. White Noise transforms the imminent collapse of our civilization into a visceral aesthetic experience.

Stone Makers

In this short documentary, an ordinary working day in the heart of a granite quarry surreptitiously turns into a spectacular industrial symphony.

Interview with a Free Man

In this documentary short, several men go through a job interview eager to get a fresh start in life. With each question that's asked, we glimpse tiny snippets of their lives along with their hopes and fears. Nicolas Lévesque's Interview with a Free Man cleverly toys with viewers through its oblique narration, constantly upending our expectations.

Absences

Carole Laganière dives deeply into personal territory in this beautifully crafted exploration of absence and loss and its painful effect on daily lives. Inspired by her mother’s steadily advancing Alzheimer’s and the inevitability of her estrangement, Laganière weaves their story with the stories of others wrestling with loss: Ines, an immigrant who returns to her birth country of Croatia to find the mother who abandoned her during the war; Deni, an American author who’s finally able to search for his Quebec roots; and Nathalie, who’s desperately looking for her missing sister. Through their experiences the film ponders how absence is often the catalyst for a quest—a quest for information, understanding and often acceptance. Through its many voices, Absences speaks to us of the immense fragility and resiliency of human emotions.

The Wind at My Door

In this feature documentary, filmmaker Pierre Goupil, suffering from bipolar disorder, recounts his difficult relationship with the disease and looks back on his journey as an artist in a society that does not accept marginalized people. The film celebrates creation, social ties and the freedom of the individual in the face of all the powers that enslave.