Les années de rêves

This feature documentary by Jean-Claude Labrecque recounts the bold and astounding enterprise of French filmmaker Julien Duvivier, who shot a film adaptation of Louis Hémon’s classic novel Maria Chapdelaine in Péribonka, a village in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, in 1934. What was the impact of the original film’s production on the life of the community? What memories remain? What town secrets lie hidden in those memories?

In a lonely setting, a teenage girl dreams. She is bored, manifests childish rebellions: her nascent personality rears up and asserts itself. "Be our star," suggests a director of women's pages. What will this flight to the world of work bring to Solange?

Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.

This short documentary shows Canada's top swimmers in training for the 1964 Olympic Games. Under the critical eye of coach Ed Healy, they practice long hours in the gym and in the pool to build strength and stamina.

On the eve of her final moments, a woman recalls her alcoholic past. She revisits her entire youth, including a binge that, at 46, cost her everything she had: "Loneliness and aging are themes that impose themselves on me, in one form or another. As for alcoholism, it fascinates me because of the revolt it underpins, and revolts me because of the unhappiness it creates around itself.

In this French Canadian film, when the provincial government tries to move two young farmers from their land to make way for development, the two fight back, accidentally killing a policeman and becoming outlaws in the process.

Rejeanne and Gilles are a married couple whose devastating setbacks--she is laid off from her job and he suffers a debilitating stroke--only begin to fester in the face of corporate greed and personal struggles when they attempt to start over in a new neighborhood.

The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them seem compatible but eventually drove them apart. Their story reflects, to a degree, the situation of anyone who has ever shared the life of another.

A worker, called in a hurry to remove the snow in the city street, try to buy his remaining gifts in the tumult of Christmas eve without quitting his work.

Each married on their side, a teacher and a sociologist meet by chance in Quebec. Political and intellectual discussions followed a brief mad love.

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.

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.

Edited from almost 100 km of film footage shot during the Games, this feature documentary is a breathtaking portrait of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Much more than a simple record of the Games, the film approaches each event with the intention of revealing the athlete - whether winner or loser - as a unique individual.

When Remy, an ad consultant, falls in love with Sarah, the newest star of an ad campaign, sparks fly. The only problem is that they are both married. Sarah's husband knows she will eventually get tired of Remy while his wife just can't let go. At first she throws him out, begs him to come back, cheats on him, hates him, and finally slumps into the worse depression ever. It is amazing what love can do...