The Time of the Buffoons

An unfinished film on Belmont Park, the mecca of popular culture in Quebec in the 1950s. An anthropological reflection on life and death.

Robert Gratton is a small-town shopkeeper. A right-wing man, he has an unbounded devotion to Elvis Presley. He decides to enter an Elvis impersonation contest.

Elvis Gratton is back from Santa Banana. Now it's time to get ready for the holiday season. Our man is very busy. At the mayor's reception, he performs his greatest hits.But then tragedy strikes.Elvis dies.Will it all end on such a sad note?

Speak White is a French language poem composed by Québécois writer Michèle Lalonde in 1968. It was first recited in 1970 and was published in 1974 by Editions de l'Hexagone, Montreal. It denounced the poor situation of French-speakers in Quebec and takes the tone of a collective complaint against English-speaking Quebecers. In 1980, Speak White was made into a short motion picture by polemicists Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin, the six-minute film featured actress Marie Eykel reading Lalonde's poem. It was released by the National Film Board of Canada.

In 1839, months after the British army has repressed the insurrection of the Patriots, hundreds of rebels are still in prison. The morning of February 14, Marie-Thomas Chevalier De Lorimier and Charles Hindelang learn that they will be hung in 24 hours, with three others. While they await their death the condemned spend time and consult with companions and loved ones as well as entrust to those their last wills. At dawn, the five Patriots will walk to the scaffold, knowing will they die.

A dramatization of the abduction and murder of a Quebec government minister by a cell of The Quebec Liberation Front. In October 1970, one group from the same organization kidnapped James Cross, the British Trade Commissioner in Montreal. A few days later, a second group kidnapped Pierre Laporte, a minister of the Liberal government. The film tells the story of this last terrorist cell which ended in the cold blooded murder of Laporte.

During the summer of 1968, Leon, a 10-year-old boy, navigates the hardships of young love, his lunatic mother's whims, and his urges to vandalize the house of his neighbors.

Humurous short on the theme of hunger around the world that combines animation and fiction.

The documentary is a portrait of former Canadian boxing champion Gaétan Hart, profiling both the ups and downs of his career in the 1970s and 1980s and his attempt to return to the sport in a 1990 fight. The film's title was inspired by "A Piece of Steak", Jack London's 1909 short story about a retired boxer struggling with poverty.

Christophe agrees to be filmed by his roommate Stéphane, while he is searching for a meaningful engineering job. Since he voluntarily resigned his job when he was to be moved to quality control, he does not get unemployment benefits, and goes to classes on how to contest the decision.

Images and sounds are spliced together in this journey to the heart of the political, economic and cultural oppression of the Quebec people. A reflection on neo-colonial exploitation and the cancer of alienation. To the very Canadian multiculturalism of Trudeau and the métissage of the multinationals, celebrated by the high priests of the dominant ideology, is contrasted the idea of acculturation, even deculturation. A way of resisting as good as any other.

A Québécois Elvis impersonator is disillusioned to find a Chinaman participating in an Elvis contest. He later takes his wife on vacation to the island of Santa Banana.

At a maximum security prison, there is preparation for the annual party where entertainers and strippers are scheduled to perform. But not everyone is having fun. A man is sent to solitary, his wife has a nervous breakdown, and a convict prepares to make a daring escape.

Elvis Gratton, dead for three days, comes back to life.