Days Before the Death of Nicky

A popular sensation in medieval Europe, bestiaries were catalogs of beasts featuring exotic animal illustrations, zoological wisdom, and ancient legends. The documentary unfolds like a filmic picture book where both humans and animals are on display. As we observe them, they also observe us and one another, invoking the Hindu idea of “darshan”: a mutual beholding that initiates a shift in consciousness.

An introverted man runs a "car cemetery" where people come to find parts for old vehicles.

Living somewhere in present-day Quebec, Boris Malinowski has achieved all his goals. A freethinker, open-minded and proud, he also displays a certain arrogance when it comes to his successes. For some time now, his wife Béatrice, a Canadian government minister, has been bedridden, suffering from a mysterious depression. To escape from his wife’s agony, Boris begins a relationship with a colleague, Helga, and gets close to Klara, a young woman who works as a maid in Boris’s home. The sudden appearance of a stranger in his life forces Boris to come face-to-face with the world, with everything he takes for granted, with all his certainties.

It is a small village somewhere in Quebec with only 215 inhabitants. When young Simon Dubé dies in a car accident, the villagers’ tranquil and regulated existence is thrown out of step. People are decidedly reluctant to talk about the accident. Time seems to lose all meaning. Snowy, frosty winter days stretch out into infinity. Mysterious figures emerge from the fog and commit strange acts. But what seems strange is sometimes more familiar than one might suspect.

Christian has commited a crime, a crime of compassion. A troubled soul, he must now flee not only the law, but the deep ethical consequences of his act. The path he sets upon leads him to where all roads end : a small community by the name of Radisson, 1500km north of Montreal. Slowly, he starts his life anew among his new neighbours, a new job, a new interest in life. His story drifts along, somewhere between fiction and reality…

Hedonistic philosopher-cum-delinquent, Antonin always finds the right word to win himself both the compliments and the rebukes of his fellows. Antonin never misses a chance to exploit both the goodness and the patience of his wife, Églantine. He is also a constant source of disappointment to his sister, Solveig. Busy trying to avoid Rose the tax collector who is after his neck, Antonin cannot get his attraction and desire for the beautiful Cassiopée out of his skull. Tormented, Antonin must now devise the right scheme and the right words to apologize to Aurore, one of his victims. Between these five women, Antonin gets stuck.

Que ta joie demeure is not a documentary about being a slave to the machine, alienation, dehumanisation or exploitation. Sound and image, editing and dramatic structure are merely employed to transpose workshops and factory floors into the cinematic space so as to explore the bizarre environments that workers adapt to and with which they skillfully interact, as if humanity had never done anything else since time immemorial.

Set in a rural Québec village in the dead of winter, Jean-François, a single father, works at a deserted bowling alley at night and in a rundown motel during the day. His daughter, Julyvonne, never leaves their home. Jean-François isolates her in fear that contact with the outside world will scar her the way it has him.

Struggling with depression and social anxiety, Paul has found refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes. By sharing his gently eccentric routines on social media, he combats loneliness and takes it one day at a time.

Two recently released prisoners learn to live in a sugar shack deep in the forest.

Welcome to Lisbon: there are mermaids by the Tagus and birds flying over the old city; there are mad scientists and singing fish; lost tourist guides and lost tourists; fado and sad guitars. What a weird city you may think - but no. Lisbon is about being different, sarcastic, welcoming to foreigners even in an economic crisis. Different directors became fascinated by our strangeness. We became fascinated by these directors. The city is never the same in these four episodes, here in Lisbon.

Set on carrying out her task with dedication, a woman is obsessed with watching over anonymous interiors and occupying them. Both a custodian of the premises and a ghostly presence, she becomes an echo of how we relate to time, solitude and the melancholy of forsaken spaces.

After a lengthy virtual relationship over the Internet, Milena and Philip take the plunge and agree to finally meet. Having lived in Montreal for over a decade, Milena, an immigrant of Bulgarian descent, accepts to greet her correspondent Philip, a flirtatious photographer from Sofia. Out in an isolated cottage in Quebec's countryside, the couple abandon themselves to one another. Between periods of cultural clashes and fleshly pleasures, the two assess each other and the possibilities for true love. But strange, uncanny events soon disrupt Milena and Philip's quiet intimacy as secrecy and silence slowly set in -nihilproductions

In a countryside house where they are meant to explore the troubles in their sexuality, three women spend days and nights apprehending their inner demons. A serene German therapist and a kind-hearted social worker supervise them, help them and try to maintain the fragile balance of the group. During 26 days, in the midst of summer, Geisha, Léonie and Eugénie will have to refrain from breaking down, tame the whispers from present times and consider the future.

Mira is a solitary woman of few words. She travels around meeting desperate people with whom she seems to have forged strange death pacts. With no apparent destination, she comes across Madeleine and Ludo, two free-spirited hedonists living deep in the forest.

On a film set, director Denis Côté and his crew are shooting his latest feature; Vic+Flo saw a bear, starring Romane Bohringer, Pierrette Robitaille and Marc-André Grondin. A contemplative film where we can observe and listen in on what actually went on, where technicians make the final adjustments, actors giving their best performances and a calm and collected director orchestrating it all. To sum it up, it's cinema at work.