La piastre

Follow both the professional and personal lives of reporters working for The Express, a daily Montréal Newspaper.

A group of young men train to be revolutionaries and plan an insurrection of the Canadian government.

Two harum-scarums who think they are good stand-up comics try to make a career in showbiz, partly for the career, partly to seduce women. They try alternatively the scene, a movie set and TV. They only succeed in making a fool of themselves

Juan Alvarez, a Spanish refugee in Canada, shoemaker, picks up at his home Manuel, a 12-year-old Portuguese teenager, whom he teaches to read, to assert his rights and who speaks of the Spanish civil war.

An actor works as night watchman at a film studio where a musical serial killer strikes.

Two children find themselves trapped in their school, the day before Christmas Eve. Their vigilance and resourcefulness are no match for the locked doors, barred windows and the snowstorm that, by causing a power outage, deprives them of light and heat. Worried, frozen, hungry, they confront each other, support each other, console each other in order to overcome their fear. More than courage, it is the discovery of solidarity that will allow them to emerge stronger from this journey to the end of the night.

Saturday, 12 p.m. The countdown has begun for four men on the make for women. Massage studios, last minute shopping, bodybuilding; our men ardently throw themselves into the ritual of appearance. It is impossible to resist the ferociously burlesque and remarkably stereotypical behavior of these characters. We will meet Gérard known as The Bull, Patrice known as The Lion, Jean-Jacques known as The Peacock and Serge known as The Earthworm. All of this is set in the clubs and bars of late night Montréal.

In the summer of 1969, Bernard, a Gaspesian fisherman's son, arrive in Perce to fin work. He meets Paul, Jacques and Francis, Quebec Independence activists who have come to open the 'Fisherman's House'. They aim to organize public conferences and offer lodgings to young travelers. A motley crowd of Quebecers from all over the province soon flocks to Perce: artists, hippies, rockers, hitchhikers and the like shake local authorities. Bernard is won over by the trio's ideas and gets increasingly involved in their project. The following year, the will join the Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ) and play a pivotal role in the Summer Crisis 1969.

A warm summer in Montreal. Two black men, Man and Bouba, share an apartment. Man is an ambitious author, writing on The Great Novel. Bouba is a lazy amateur philosopher who quotes the Koran. Man's habit of picking up young white women makes many young white men jealous...