Chaos and Desire

A passionate and unpredictable film about three characters in love, Les Sauf-conduits explores the tenuous balance between friendship and romantic love. When three friends set out to break the world’s egg-tossing record, their relationships become increasingly entangled and complicated. In her arresting first film, director Manon Briand crafts poetic images that are striking, fresh and occasionally quirky, and elicits uncannily natural performances from her actors. Les Sauf-conduits garnered several awards on the festival circuit, including the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the 1992 Festival of Festivals (now the Toronto International Film Festival®) and Golden Sheaf Awards for Best Director and Best Film at the Yorkton Film Festival.

A French chef in search of fame tries to help the young Lili-Beth win a culinary competition. But to do so he must contend with the hostility of an entire village towards Sonia, the intransigent local customs officer.

Through an immigrant cab driver, our world collides with a nervous filmmaker, a lawyer whose new breasts her ex-boyfriend wants to see, a mystery man, a gay man who might or might not have AIDS, and a birthday girl who got stood up. It is a mixture of laughter and sadness, all floating on a sea of philosophy.

An unexpected heroine is plunged into a world of forged identities, corporate intrigue and organized crime.

This made-for-TV bio-pic is about Marilyn Bell, a Canadian teenager who, in 1954, was the first person to swim across Lake Ontario. She won the Toronto Canadian National Exhibition prize after Florence Chadwick, a then-famous American swimmer who was widely expected to win, dropped out in the middle of the race. Half of this heart-warming movie is devoted to the 21 hour swim in which the 16-year old Bell is exhorted by her pushy coach Gus Ryder not to give up.

Laurie, a professional downhill racer gets fired because of her slight overindulgence in irresponsibility. She returns to Montreal where she is welcomed by her geeky but cute brother. She meets Lorenzo, a cranky, ex-racer who owns a bike shop. The two become friends. Laurie gets a job with a local bicycle courier company, but a member of the group is intent on shutting her out of their circles, making her life difficult and sad. After a bonding truth-revealing discussion between Laurie and Lorenzo, Laurie begins to see what she has to do to make things better for herself.