Éloge du chiac

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.

Jacques Godbout takes us into the world of Anne Hébert, a woman he considered his spiritual sister and who had only one raison d’être: literature. During the four decades of her creative process, this Quebecois poet and novelist rose to the ranks of the greatest French-language writers, with books such as Kamouraska, Les fous de Bassan and Le tombeau des rois.

In 1838, François-Xavier Bouchard fights beside his Québec countrymen and the English minority.

A fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.

Paris, summer 1960. Anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist and film critic Edgar Morin wander through the crowded streets asking passersby how they cope with life's misfortunes.

Les inconnus de la terre starts like a traditional feature film: in the beginning of the film all the leading roles are given a short introduction. This is followed by a number of interviews, in which the makers unashamedly appear themselves. They include an interview with a lonely shepherd and one with three unmarried brothers who try to run the parental farm for better or worse. Notwithstanding the fact that this mode of interviewing has now become classical, les inconnus de la terre works rather refreshingly. The film is more than just an enumeration of problems. In an honest way it shows the ties of those involved to the land and to nature, in addition to being a plea for the modernization of French agriculture.

A woman is overwhelmed with having to deal with her emotionally unstable daughter, mentally-challenged brother and two suitors while simultaneously trying to run her small firewood business.

A film in four episodes presenting teenage girls chosen as representative of their country and our time, in Italy, France, Japan and Canada. In spite of the stylistic peculiarities of the filmmakers, we find in each of them the same desire not to affirm anything, not to judge, but to quite simply show.

Set in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business.

While visiting their grandparents in the Québec countryside, two children enter a fantasy kingdom and are confronted by evil forces.

A candid-camera view of professional wrestling as seen in the Montréal Forum, where some of the biggest bouts are staged, and in back-street wrestling parlours where the warriors practice their art.

Two teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love. One of four film sketches on the problems of adolescents facing the adult world in the 1960s included in the anthology film That Tender Age (La fleur de l'âge, ou Les adolescentes). The three other sketches were directed by Jean Rouch, Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Gian Vittorio Baldi.

A psychiatrist is sent to evaluate if a convicted multiple murderer who's awaiting execution on Death Row for eighth year now and whose behavior during that time got more and more erratic is still mentally fit to be executed.

Dedicated “to all victims of intolerance,” "The Devil’s Toy" is a faux–public service documentary that chronicles the early days of skateboarding in Montreal. Framed as mock anti-skateboarding propaganda, Claude Jutra contrasts official hostility with the exhilaration and freedom experienced by youths racing downhill through city streets, shortly before the activity was banned.

A young singer-songwriter abandons his life in his hometown and moves to the city to make it big. He achieves fame, but it comes at a price.

Working as a pharmacy clerk while dreaming of escape through dance, Normande St-Onge supports a household of dependent and unstable relatives. As her efforts to protect and hold together her improvised family intensify, the pressures of exploitation, eviction, and emotional isolation push her toward psychological collapse. Directed by Gilles Carle, the film blurs the boundary between fantasy and breakdown.