The Forties

In this short fiction film, Marie has been living in the midst of a nightmare since the accident of Bernard, her brother. Clinging excessively to this handicapped being, she wants to take charge of it. Étienne, her fiancé, has no taste for sacrifice. He reproaches Marie for languishing in her adolescence. Love will prevail. In a definitive gesture, Marie will free herself from the bonds that still held her back to her childhood.

Luc-André Godbout, better known as Ti-Dré, is a forty-three-year-old orphan who cleanses furnaces and consciences. Here he is presented, life-size, in a film impregnated with this extraordinary character.

Hélène is a woman who already has, in her view, quite enough children. For some time she has secretly been taking birth control pills, but now she is too old to use them safely. When her husband Gabriel discovers the pills, he is distressed, since he wants a large family. The two of them discuss their differing attitudes and desires but come to no resolution.

Feature-length documentary directed by Mireille Danserau in 1973: in-depth interviews with four young women who explain their complex relationships with men, motherhood and their own femininity, sometimes radically detaching themselves from the standardized and traditional conception of the couple.

a portrait of the changing social and political context of the nuclear family in the 1970s, focusing on four families of varying circumstances: a traditional nuclear family with a special needs child, a separated family, a single-parent family and a family in a communal living environment.

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.

The Director reflects upon and seeks to understand the causes and the events that lead to her drug-addicted prostitute daughter being murdered at the age of 26.

A film that looks at life in a small paper-mill town in Québec where most of the 6,500 inhabitants derive their livelihood from the one industry. Day after day, the same work, the same hours, the same machines, the same product, until the entire routine of living becomes but a reflection of the dominant routine of the mill.

A director and an editor, both women, cannot work on a movie presenting the rape of a nurse without reacting on the scenes they're working on, the situation of womanhood in general, and the way the 'Justice' handle those cases of rape.

A man struggles with his identity, his life choices, his interracial relationship, and his latent homosexuality. A portrait of some young intellectuals in early sixties Montreal.

Documents a woman's actual pregnancy; the emotions, the affects on her husband and first-born child, the birth itself via Caesarean section, and her struggle to return to work and a social life, while still being a good mother.

Friendship between two old men becomes love. Slightly-unkempt, tired, and frail, Philippe Lanctot moves into a rest home. The administrator says she wants him to be happy, but that seems far from his mind: he's waiting to die. Then, into his room, unannounced, rolls the voluble Victor Laprade, who draws out Philippe over the next few months. Victor gives Philippe the gift of experiencing the moment. In return, the well-heeled Philippe organises field trips to dinner and to a botanical garden, and, unknown to Victor, becomes the man's benefactor when Victor's children get stingy. The openly-gay Victor also pushes Philippe to acknowledge feelings he's always kept suppressed.

Hundreds of excerpts from 60 French films produced by the NFB over the course of 50 years are assembled to offer a look at the evolution of how women have been portrayed on film.