Neighborhood Utopia

For two months during the summer 2001 mayoral campaign, a group of protesters occupy an abandoned building in order to draw attention to the housing crisis in Montréal.

The current trend to render prostitution a profession "as any other" is belied by women who were themselves prostitutes. With clarity and courage, the women in this film reveal the hidden face of that so-called "sex work". They are 22, 34 or 48 years old; they live in Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa - They have recently given up prostitution, or are trying to escape it. These women are leading the bitter fight to turn their lives around and it is a long and lonely struggle fraught with difficulties. Shot in a Cinéma Vérité style, The Fallacy (L'imposture) takes us to the heart of their realities.

Over the past thirty years and with the rise of the Internet, the sex trade has grown globally until it has become a real industry today. Luxury or street prostitution, escort agencies, massage parlors, dance bars, the pornography industry or sex tourism ... But who really benefits from this trade which turns women's bodies into a merchandise that can be exploited at mercy? The sex trade offers a foray into a brutal world where the main actors trivialize the scope of their actions, reducing sexual exploitation to the level of a simple transaction.

This feature documentary takes us back to April 20, 2001, as Quebec City prepares to host the 3-day Summit of the Americas. A 4-kilometre fence has been erected, cutting off the Upper Town from the rest of the city. Thirty-four heads of state from the Americas will meet behind closed doors to discuss agreements for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Those opposed to the FTAA are mobilizing and gathering in Quebec City, too. Several thousand delegates have come to participate in the People's Summit, and tens of thousands will march in protest. Six thousand police officers fill the streets and it looks as if the historic Quebec capital is under siege. The local population fears the worst. Will the Quebec capital become a battleground? Shot in cinéma vérité style by 7 of Quebec's best documentary filmmakers, View from the Summit vividly portrays what happens when passionate and creative protesters clash with the ideologies of those in power.

Farmer and director Ève Lamont talks to farmers about their solutions to challenge the hegemony of factory farms in the global food system.