Le Pays des âmes (a jazz fable)

Much of Godin’s purple, declarative dialogue is delivered at a breakneck pace, as though these verbally nimble actors are running lines at auctioneer-speed while simultaneously playing their intentions to the hilt. The film is an exercise in radical compression, its velocity integral to its comic effects, though all the rapid-fire yakking and spastically edited reverse-shot sequences lead to a wordless denouement in which Mésuline searches her pockets for a cigarette in a shot that’s hardly protracted yet still takes up about one-fifth of this taut little film’s runtime. Her pleasure in finally lighting up is fairly adorable.

Fiction bleeds into reality. Women declare themselves pregnant with the letter E! Denzel Washington plays himself in a popular sitcom. Chaos reigns and cops crave poetry. Mélusine Catafor abandons her identity in the city of Three-Rivers to seek a new one in Montreal where she hopes to learn English and where her best friend, Marie-Cobra Tremblay strives to birth an Odyssey. Rosaire, a melancholic pastor, organizes a major conference on Impossible Loves. Also, you'll meet La Renarde who hides a hole-punch in her coat. You'll learn the hole-punch is a formidable weapon used to pierce the ears of alley cats. As you can imagine, it's a comedy.

The blacksmith returns to Montreal with fire and sword. He finds his old shop, now abandoned, and all the memories it holds.

Koroviev, a police officer who teaches poetry in a brigade of police poets, is in search of a precious Bible annotated by Pierre Maheu, the captain of the St. Elias, a legendary ship. His quest leads him to befriend a young thief who introduces him to a mysterious woman named Coriandre.

Waiting for April is a romantic, epic cop comedy freely inspired by songs and medieval fables collected by storyteller Michel Faubert. Detective Haffigan investigates a mysterious singing bone, a talisman endowed with dangerous powers, and chased after by a coterie of second-rate outlaws. The bone turns out to be in possession of Mithridate, a seductive actor with a gorilla’s right arm. Haffigan expresses romantic interest in the charming comedian, but he rebuffs her, instead setting his sights on Eleonore, a cashier at the Bank of Permanent Fog, who promises to liberate him from the bone’s curse.

Jazz. Haiti. Plantains.

The Barbarian believes he has only a few erections left before death. Cursed to a life in a thrift shop and haunted by family tragedy, he sets his sights on Marie, an alcoholic special-ed teacher. If he must go, he figures, he might as well go out in good company.

Francis is a taciturn teenager unhappy with his life. Not wanting to stay with is mother, he lives in a foster home in the Laurentian countryside with is guardian, Brian. They spend their days building a bed for Camille, a young orphan soon to be joining them. But Francis wants more: he wants out. As fate would have it, he crosses paths with Bruno, a young gardener who decides to pass the night in the forest.

Lost in Montreal, an American is looking for a missing trumpet player. He begins his search in the apartment of the musician, where he'll meet Melissa, the young woman who lived with the missing man.