Saved by the Belles

A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

21 year-old Rémi leaves his small town in Quebec for the first time to go sell Christmas trees in New York City in order to pay off a debt that threatens his future. Dumped in the heart of the Bronx, he meets Laura, a deadpan French activist, who will be his colleague for the next month. Together they will meet the vibrant community around their street corner and learn to survive the absurd trials of Christmas tree sales.

At 17, Jérémie dreams of a better place, far from the family sawmill and his native village in Bas-Saint-Laurent. The situation despairs his father Régis, who blames a small-time drug dealer for this disinterest. When the older brother leaves, the lives of Jérémie and Régis are turned upside down.

It is a small village somewhere in Quebec with only 215 inhabitants. When young Simon Dubé dies in a car accident, the villagers’ tranquil and regulated existence is thrown out of step. People are decidedly reluctant to talk about the accident. Time seems to lose all meaning. Snowy, frosty winter days stretch out into infinity. Mysterious figures emerge from the fog and commit strange acts. But what seems strange is sometimes more familiar than one might suspect.

As another Middle East crisis explodes, Adam, a Jewish teenager and Yasmine a Lebanese girl fall in love in Montreal. But the crisis overseas effects their relationship in ways they never expected.

In 40,000 years of existence, the human being – Homo sapiens – has never walked so little. With the decline of walking, are we at risk of losing our humanity? Made To Walk explores this question through intimate encounters with a gallery of extra/ordinary individuals — walkers and scientists — who reclaim or redefine walking as a way to reconnect with themselves. In a world that is increasingly sedentary, virtual, and fragmented, they each, in their own way, resist gravity, imbalance, the loss of identity, direction, or the experience of grief, by responding to the vital and inevitable call to stand and move on two feet.

Louise Denoncourt, a parole officer, skillfully operates an experimental rehabilitation wing for criminals who have committed homicides. When she finds herself in front of Marc St-Germain, a new inmate whom her father suspects of being her mother's murderer, she embarks on a mission that quickly overwhelms her. She then puts everything at stake, even her life, in order to prevent any desire to reoffend. But will she be overtaken by the desire to avenge her family history?