Béliveau

The story of a Polish family during the Second World War.

In the 1950s, young boys were placed in orphanages and endure harsh and austere living conditions. As a united group, they supported each other and survived despite bullying, hardship and little hope for better days. While these children were doing their best to survive, they had no way to suspect the secret dealings between the clergy, the medical profession and the government that will inevitably seal their fates. The institution faced with a precarious financial situation, the solution is to transform the orphanage into a psychiatric institute in order to obtain additional subsidies. To demonstrate the need for this change in status, the orphans are labeled as insane by the very people who took them in to help them. While their future as orphans was already precarious, they become prisoners of an asylum system from which they have little hope of being able to free themselves even as they grow older.

A quiet painter, separated from his wife for a year, receives a suitcase in the mail from his mother, whom he hasn't seen since infancy. He believes she abandoned him to his wealthy, paternal grandparents. The suitcase contains mementos and a diary, a long letter to him, written over the years, with details of her youth, her first job as a pianist at a cinema, the coming of talkies, her marriage, and how he came to live with his grandparents. As he reads through the materials and her story comes to life, his son Antoine, who's about 10 or 12, tries to break through his father's silence and sorrow by taking matters into his own hands.

On April 1st, 1986, Jean-Guy Lavigueur, an unemployed blue-collar worker and his family won 7.6 million dollars. At the time, it was the largest amount ever won at Loto-Quebec's 6/49 weekly draws. What should have been the beginning of a fairytale for the family turned rapidly into a nightmare...

Neglected by his father, William, a star college hockey player, also suffered harassment from his coach and some teammates. By chance of a visit to Sainte-Justine hospital, the young man, whose morale and motivation are at its lowest, meets ten-year-old Daniel, awaiting a kidney transplant. Their passion for the Habs unites them instantly and William tries, by all means, to give him hope in the face of the disease.

Mirador is a major public relations firm, directing a small army of PR experts. Whatever situation their clients find themselves in –international scandal, murder, political hot water or fetish sex – Mirador will control the outcome for them.

Based on real facts. A working class family going through a particularly bad patch wins one of the biggest lottery awards in history. Their life changes radically but not always for the better. A history about family, love, money and human existence.