Georges Dufaux

All over North America young people are rejecting orthodoxy of all kinds and embracing new cults, new forms of self-discovery, from Krishna to bio-feedback. Group dynamics, encounter groups, transcendental meditation, Eastern philosophy, communal living, return-to-nature, re-energized evangelism--all are roads to salvation according to the individual's belief. This film takes a discerning look at them all, from Canada to California.

Two teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love. One of four film sketches on the problems of adolescents facing the adult world in the 1960s included in the anthology film That Tender Age (La fleur de l'âge, ou Les adolescentes). The three other sketches were directed by Jean Rouch, Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Gian Vittorio Baldi.

A professional race car driver's obsession with winning races causes communication problems between him and his wife that threaten to separate them.

One day in a kindergarten classroom at Van Horne Public School in Montreal. The teacher encourages children to turn their curiosity into questions and organizes group activities and play periods.

Sharon and her ten year old son Bayo live in Tickle Cove on the shores of Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland like generations of their family have before them. Sharon hates her life there. She dreams of moving to Toronto - where her now deceased mother was from - to eke out a better life for her and Bayo. She even leaves her big black packed trunk in the middle of the foyer as a symbolic gesture that that move will soon be happening. She equally hates her fisher father, Phillip Longlan, for subjecting her and her mother to life there. Phillip, who spends most of his time on a commercial fishing boat, only provides Sharon enough money to survive but not to achieve that dream of leaving. Bayo, however, doesn't want to leave, especially leave his grandfather behind. He wants to live and die by the sea, much like his deceased father, who he never knew.

A moving look at the mother-daughter relationship, seen through the eyes of three women: Francine, the filmmaker, whose liberating journey leads her to reconcile with her past; Béatrice, her mother, who experienced more structured parenting and whose omnipresence was perceived as suffocating by her daughter; and Claudia, Francine’s almost-daughter, an adopted child who speaks to us about the absence of her birth mother.” (Translated from French description, femfilm.ca)

In this documentary, giants of italian cinema such as Rossellini, De Sica, Fellini and Zavattini talk about the importance of cinema after WW2, and about huge moments of social rebellion. This movie gives the floor to the creators of italian neorealism.

Through the direct testimony of the Indians, the phenomenon of acculturation suffered by the Otomí minority of the Mezquital Valley, one of the poorest rural areas of the state of Hidalgo, in Mexico, is analyzed. It tries to show a broader problem that encompasses a large part of the Continent; how other peoples, other ethnic groups, are exterminated with all kinds of mechanisms, from brutal repression to the most sophisticated cultural penetration.

A film in four episodes presenting teenage girls chosen as representative of their country and our time, in Italy, France, Japan and Canada. In spite of the stylistic peculiarities of the filmmakers, we find in each of them the same desire not to affirm anything, not to judge, but to quite simply show.

Manon, is obsessed with famous writer Chester Celine, who hails from Wyoming. Manon learns Chester is coming to town and becomes a slinky, svelte temptress

A young man runs from the voices in his head into the arms of an elderly cowgirl.

This documentary short offers a nostalgic look at the steam locomotive as it passes from reality to history. In its heyday, the big smoke-belching steam engine seemed immortal. Now, powerful and efficient diesels are pushing the old coal-burning locomotives to the sidelines, and the lonely echo of their whistles may soon be a thing of the past.

This short, silent film captures a Sunday afternoon at a community skating rink. Iconic Quebec director Gilles Carle has the camera follow toddlers learning to skate, young girls flashing their skates and boys decked out in the colours of their favourite hockey teams. A picture perfect moment on a bright winter's day.

The history of the roles of women in Quebec society, beginning with the women shipped from France to the New World by the King to populate the colony with the men already there, and ending with the modern career woman.

"Labyrinth" is a groundbreaking multi-screen 45-minute presentation produced for Chamber III of the Labyrinth at Expo 67 in Montreal, using 35 mm and 70 mm film projected simultaneously on multiple screens. A film without commentary in which multiple images, sometimes complementary, sometimes contrasting, draw the viewer through the different stages of a labyrinth. The tone of the film moves from great joy to wrenching sorrow; from stark simplicity to ceremonial pomp. It is life as it is lived by the people of the world, each one, as the film suggests, in a personal labyrinth. Re-released in 1979 as "In the Labyrinth" by the National Film Board of Canada in a 21-minute single projection format.

In this tragicomedy, Toni is the director of a staged rendition of Othello in Montreal. It is a pet project of his, financed by his loving mafia uncle. Unbeknownst to him, the audiences are also rounded up (and paid) by the same uncle. Some of them have seen every performance of this tragic play, and are understandably bored, so when the backstage romantic shenanigans of the actors result in absurd situations onstage, the audience is delighted. There are a huge number of romantic situations going on in this film at the same time. One of them involves Gaston a somewhat world-weary jazz musician, and Florence, a glamorous middle-aged woman who has been pining for him for years. Another involves to members of the musician's jazz trio. Yet another involves the play's Desdemona, Soledad, the girlfriend of the man playing Othello, who can't keep his hands off his (female) dresser.

Edited from almost 100 km of film footage shot during the Games, this feature documentary is a breathtaking portrait of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Much more than a simple record of the Games, the film approaches each event with the intention of revealing the athlete - whether winner or loser - as a unique individual.

Canadian documentary film directed by Paul Cowan about the 1978 Commonwealth Games.

A many-faced view of humanity, of global man in all his forms and interests. Produced originally in 70 mm (with stereophonic sound) for showing at Man and His World, the Montréal fair that succeeded Expo 67, this film employs the multi-image technique. People of all places, origins, cultures, secular and religious, are here united and seen side by side, creating an impressive, inspiring and challenging portrait. The film's title appears in seven languages. Film without words.

The cod fishery off the east coast of Newfoundland was a way of life, the backbone of society -- until it collapsed. A review of the history leading up to the crisis and the subsequent call for a moratorium of the northwest Atlantic cod fishery.

Twenty-four year old Montréaler Caroline works as a sales representative for a telephone company. She's married to Claude, the two who have a young son. On their fourth wedding anniversary, about which Claude seems to have forgot or doesn't care, Caroline seems unhappy with her life, although she approaches it with a certain efficiency. When she was growing up, she, like any girl, had several ideas which changed all the time of what she wanted to do with her life when she grew up. But her life hasn't seemed to come close to any of those dreams. Can Claude or anyone else reassure Caroline about her life, especially on this milestone?

This short documentary shows the reactions of European immigrants as they land in Halifax at the beginning of the 1960s. From the port, we follow them on a snowy journey by train to Montreal.

This short documentary is about Mike Duff, a Canadian motorcycle racer, and the sport that almost killed him. After a near-fatal crash in Japan and extensive surgery and therapy, Duff returned to racing to claim two victories in Canadian races. Though the sport takes its toll on the lives of his friends and fellow competitors annually, the racer explains he can’t give up just yet – not before winning a world championship.