The Joy of Winter

"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

The artwork of well-known Quebec animator Frédéric Back are used to tell the tale of Champlain’s life in New France – from his first explorations and settlement to his death in 1635. This is an edited version of his 28 minute short documentary on Champlain.

Two youngsters, a boy and girl barely into their teens, set up housekeeping together after dropping out of school. They have very little money and end up living in a rooming house. They spend their time playing, coming up with slogans, and writing them on available walls. Their relationship is mostly fraternal, so the boy doesn't understand the girl's jealousy when he begins receiving attention from an older woman. When the girl undertakes drastic measures, he begins to understand. This Canadian film is in French, with a French director.

The undertaking of an enthusiastic group of scientists to transform an indoor cycle racing-track built for the 1968 Montréal Olympics into an ecological park. The Biodôme of Montréal contains 4 ecosystems of the 3 Americas, from the Tropical Forrest to the Polar World, from the Laurentian Forrest to the St-Lawrence Marine Environment.

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.

Man of the people, taxi driver, Jean Carignan is above all else one of the world's greatest violinists. In his hands reels become complex, intelligent creations, played with a virtuosity worthy of Paganni, and which continue the traditions of a genre passed on orally. A genre which has retained its popularity, and whose giants include Skinner, Coleman, Allard. Jean Carignan tackles their repertoire, as well as reaping the harvest of his exploration of Irish and Scottish musical traditions, which has made of him an internationally renowned specialist in Celtic music. This film is also a love story between an impoverished child and his violin, and provide a unique window into a remarkable era.

Structured as a cinematic essay, "Un pays sans bon sens!" explores the emotional and political foundations of belonging to a nation. Moving between Quebec, France, and Western Canada, Pierre Perrault interrogates questions of cultural maturity, autonomy, and territory at a moment when French Canadians were reexamining their collective identity.

Feature documentary on the agricultural Abitibi. This film is a real plea for the earth and for a more human kind of life in the face of a society that has become cold and insensitive.

Feature-length documentary on Hauris Lalancette, a Quebecer from Abitibi, who travels and draws surprising parallels between two corners of the country that are considered destitute and left behind. It is also about the search for ancestors and the nostalgia for old jobs that were better, both on the human level and on the technical level.

On your marks. Follow cyclists from 13 countries as they cover 2.400 km of Gaspé countryside in 12 days-a course longer than those of Italy, Belgium or Spain. The long shots of curving landscape and open road are set to a mesmerizing soundtrack in this documentary, and the results are spellbinding.

A robbery at the secluded country home of a wealthy old man goes horribly awry.

Marcel and Joseph are tireless walkers. Their itinerary is an invitation to discover improbable places and fascinating people. Everlastingly looking for Stanley, Marcel’s only friend, they meet an unlikely crowd of extravagant characters. Each has a story to tell, his hope to share.

The people of Ile-aux-Coudres talk of their fading tradition of constructing boats to ride the seas.

The unexpected return of his ex-wife and the assembly of a group of protesters both threaten to wreck a corrupt contractor's inauguration party for his new superhighway.

At the end of the year 1961, three young students, Denys Arcand, Denis Héroux and Stéphane Venne, decide to direct a feature-length film centered on the perks of student life. The film mixes fiction and reality in the style of cinéma vérité. "Alone or with others" is often considered the first indepent film of Québec.

Four years after Pour la suite du monde (1963), director Pierre Perrault asks Alexis Tremblay if he'll agree to travel with his wife Marie to the country of their ancestors, France. In a montage parallel, we follow them in France and listen to them talking to their friends about it.