A House for the Syrians

A woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.

The Pond Inlet Inuit in Nunavut live with the memory of a tragedy: in 1943, 25 people –over half the population of the community – died within the span of a few days. This personal and intimate documentary brings us into homes and lives of Ruth and Elisapie, two survivors of this tragedy.

The epicenter of the film is the Notre-Dame district in Rouyn-Noranda, which is in the spotlight thanks to a series of revelations that shed light on the impacts of toxic emissions from the Fonderie Horne. It gives the opportunity to the Abitibi deputy Émilise Lessard-Therrien and the artist Richard Desjardins, originally from the Notre-Dame district, as well as several citizens to speak.

This film presents with sensitivity the eternal childhood of Joseph Étienne, who at the age of 75 lives in the present moment. Like an angel, he watches over the young and old in the small community of Grondines.

The Cossack and the Gypsy takes us to the heart of intimate worlds of Lev Chayka and Régine Gabrysz, illustrating their memories, interior views composed of the stories about their childhood and devotion to their country of origin (Ukraine and Soviet Union). The wars and dictatorship of the past in the Eastern Europe is set in contrast with the Far North of Quebec in a forgotten boom town. Vera and Jack, the last miner, Régine and Lev are among the last first immigrants. Their Slavic voices and accents still lull the Abitibi sonorous landscapes, but for how long...

In a cozy house in the heart of a village, men and women struggling with their limits live wrapped up in a well-ordered routine.