A River in Winter

Three groups of adolescent girl friends from Quebec are going through tough changes. The process of inventing their own bodies and identity are being recorded on the move by their smartphones and shared with their peers from other parts of the networked world. Due to their strong need of external confirmation, they alter their lives into a series of retouched pictures and videos. The film camera, however, captures their feelings of void, loneliness and deep inner insecurities that are not so attractive for Periscope, TikTok or Instagram. An intimate portrait of adolescence is made with full comprehension of experiencing and self-presentation in a generation growing up on the brink of the real and virtual worlds.

During a night art exhibition in the forest, Louis tells his friend Laetitia a peculiar story... After losing consciousness during a medical exam, a strange doctor made him an unlikely proposal: die to be reborn. Skeptical at first, Laetitia slowly uncovers a strange and terrifying world.

Although mysterious and largely inaccessible to humans, the ocean is the cradle of life and an essential nursery for it. Félix Lamarche contemplates it, cozies up to it and sings its praises in this sensory short that’s as much poetry as it is science. The film alternates between archival footage and new material filmed aboard the marine research vessel Coriolis II as it explores the part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence where Quebec and Newfoundland meet. By focusing on this border and its basket of conflicting environmental and economic issues, the filmmaker takes us on a philosophical walk in the bracing coastal air – insisting that the ocean finally be valued fully and properly.

On a cargo ship, eight crew members form an improbable community torn between the search for freedom and the nostalgia of exile.

A patient camera glides over the everyday objects: still lives on the wall, flowers in the vase, a swaying drop light. The sun enters the cosy home where Noëlla sits smoking at her laptop, playing Solitaire. The situation is hopeless. She’s going to lose against the computer once again. All the while her son-in-law, Pierre, is organising everything she needs, pragmatic and friendly: breakfast, the (last) doctor’s visit – and then the transfer.