The Orphan Muses

A feature-length documentary about the famous Quebec Winter Carnival beauty pageant of 1975. Each year, seven beauties are carefully selected: a queen and six duchesses. A dream that many a young girl has cherished and lived... or experienced firsthand. They will have entered a competition marked by several stages. A tailor-made demeanor will have been demanded of them, one that has taken many hours to shape. The overall impression the viewer gets is captivating: the backstage of the Carnival is opened to an honest, yet wonderfully biased, camera.

In this melodrama, Marie and Pierre (Danielle Proulx and Marc Messier) are a comfortably middle-class couple who want the ultimate accessory: a baby. Their efforts to conceive naturally have been unsuccessful, so they decide to try using the newest artificial methods of conception. Unfortunately for them, the clinician they contact for help is also given to conducting unauthorized experiments on the human lifespan, cloning, etc. Eventually the fertilization effort is successful, and Marie has conceived quadruplets. The couple discusses this situation while driving, and are killed in an auto accident.

In April 1994, the middle-aged Canadian journalist Bernard Valcourt is making a documentary in Kigali about AIDS. He secretly falls in love for the Tutsi waitress of his hotel Gentille, who is younger than him, in a period of violent racial conflicts. When the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda begins, Bernard does not succeed in escaping with Gentille to Canada. When the genocide finishes in July 1994, Bernard returns to the chaotic Kigali seeking out Gentille in the middle of destruction and dead bodies.

This historical drama with music examines the life and times of Émile Nelligan, one of the major Canadian poets of the 19th century who struggled through a difficult childhood with the help of his loving mother, only to see his career cut short by tragic circumstances.