David Nadeau-Bernatchez

Rumba Rules, New Genealogies offers an enjoyable, rough-edged glimpse into the music scene of Kinshasa, with impromptu shots drawing the viewer into jam sessions on plastic chairs, and the quest for perfection at the studio.

February 2004. Guy Caron and his wife Jeanne-d’Arc lived in the same house for more than 50 years. A sailor who sailed every ocean, Guy was away for eight months a year, for all his career. A housekeeper, Jeanne-d’Arc raised their nine children. Their old days bring them together; but something fundamental seems to have slipped away from them forever. The director looks at this couple from a voluntary distance, leaving ample room for his quest for meaning.

In a 1959 Union Nationale propaganda film, a narrator, sitting in the projection booth, suggests a diversion: revisiting the images of rural Quebec for what they are, by recreating the soundtrack live with 3 musicians.