The Necessities of Life

Travelling to the Arctic for the first time, Carmen arrives in Iqaluit to tend to her husband, Gilles, a construction worker who has been seriously injured. Trying to get to the bottom of what happened, she strikes up a friendship with Noah, Gilles' Inuk friend, and realizes they share a similar story. Together, Carmen and Noah head out on the Frobisher Bay - she, looking for answers to her questions; he, trying to stop his son from committing what can't be undone.

At the heart of the Plateau Mont-Royal, Roger Toupin owns a corner grocer that has become an impromptu social club frequented by people who belong to a way of life that is fast disappearing. The film captures the touching and revealing last moments of this unique place.

Boys' college in eastern Quebec at the end of the 1940s. Brother Jean is not a teacher like the others. He wants to interest his students in the subject and to achieve this, he conducts archaeological excavations with his students aimed at proving the establishment of a Viking colony (Vinland) on the coast of the Saint Lawrence. The superiors of his congregation do not appreciate his unconventional ways of teaching. Without knowing it, Brother Jean will have a significant impact on the lives of his students, particularly in that of Émile, a young man who is having difficulty at school and who would prefer to abandon his studies to go work in a factory.

Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

A a psychological drama about Lydia, a young Innu woman who works at her father’s convenience store in a small First Nations community in rural Quebec. One night, as she prepares to close up shop, a masked robber enters the store and holds her at gunpoint. This traumatic experience becomes even more troubling when Lydia recognizes her assailant. Before long, she will have to make a decision that will forever change the course of her life.

Thanks to his wife Madeleine, a social worker who saved him from the street when he was 17-years-old, Pierre Dalpé has become a prosperous entrepreneur, running a garbage-collection business in the Montreal area. His quiet happiness with his wife and their children changes when he crosses paths with Eve, a teenage drug addict/prostitute who belongs to a street gang.

Benoit Pilon introduces us to those who live in the vast region more than a thousand kilometers northwest of Montreal, where, in the early 1970s, the massive James Bay project forever changed the landscape and people's lives. To carry out this mega-project, one village was created (Radisson) and another moved (Fort George, now known as Chisasibi). Though most of the workers have since gone home, some chose to stay. Radisson's inhabitants are still often tempted to move back down South, but many have developed imaginative ways of putting down roots. And while the Crees of Chisasibi look to the future, they also want to maintain their traditions, especially for the younger generation who are so attracted to the ease of modern life. But what with the hunting trips, going-away parties and still-vibrant customs, the residents of these two communities simply enjoy the Northern way of life.