February 4, 2019 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) will be at the 37th Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, February 20 to March 2, 2019, with a selection of 15 NFB productions and co-productions directed by filmmakers with strong auteur points of view—nine feature-length documentaries, five animated shorts, and an immersive documentary. Whether examining inner landscapes or the tangible, inhabited world, these works take a bold look at the notion of territory. Loïc Darses’s feature documentary La fin des terres (Where the Land Ends) will receive its world premiere at the RVQC’s closing event. This poignant film takes an uncompromising stance in exploring the political, territorial, and identity issues of our time in Quebec, from the perspective of a group of millennials. Another feature documentary getting its world premiere is La fille du cratère by Nadine Beaudet and Danic Champoux (Les vues du fleuve/NFB), which thoughtfully delves into Yolande Simard-Perrault’s quest for identity, and her influence on the work of the great Pierre Perrault. Two other moving documentaries by well-known filmmakers in French-speaking Canada will receive their Quebec premieres at RVQC, after having their world premieres at the Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie (FICFA): Les artisans de l’atelier (The Artisans) by Daniel Léger and Sans Maman (Unmothered) by Marie-France Guerrette.
The five other selected feature-length films
After extensive festival tours and acclaimed theatrical releases, the documentaries La part du diable (The Devil’s Share) by Luc Bourdon, Pauline Julien, intime et politique (Pauline Julien, Intimate and Political) by Pascale Ferland, Point d’équilibre (A Delicate Balance) by Christine Chevarie-Lessard (Productions Avenida/NFB), and Premières armes (First Stripes) by Jean-François Caissy will be presented at RVQC. And after a strong showing on the festival circuit, Julien Fréchette’s Ma guerre (My War) will be screened at RVQC and released online (date to be determined).
The five animated shorts
Following various festival appearances, five animated shorts by Montreal filmmakers will also be on the program: Bêtes de famille (Freaks of Nurture) by Alexandra Lemay, La mère des os (Bone Mother) by Dale Hayward and Sylvie Trouvé, Papillioplastie (Caterpillarplasty) by David Barlow-Krelina, Turbine by Alex Boya, and Le sujet (The Subject) by Patrick Bouchard, the only Canadian film presented at Cannes in 2018, returning to RVQC after making its world premiere at last year’s opening event.
Immersive documentary and case study
Michel Huneault’s compassionate and still very current immersive documentary about asylum seekers, Roxham (nfb.ca/roxham; NFB, in partnership with Dpt., Le Devoir, and Phi), will be presented at a virtual reality station during the festival. Luc Bourdon and Michel Giroux, respectively director and editor of La part du diable (2018) and La mémoire des anges/The Memories of Angels (2008), will speak at Rendez-vous Pro about their creative processes for these two montage films based on NFB archival footage.
Closing event – World premiere of a feature-length documentary
La fin des terres by Loïc Darses (76 min)
The documentary will be screened at the festival’s blue-carpet closing event at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 2, at the Cineplex Odéon Quartier Latin (theatre 9), attended by the director and members of the crew, producer Colette Loumède (NFB), and several of the film’s protagonists.
The first feature-length work by young filmmaker Loïc Darses, who turned heads at Sundance with his final student work, A Woman and Her Car, La fin des terres gives voice to 17 young people with diverse backgrounds who were born too late to vote in Quebec’s 1995 sovereignty referendum. The film uses only their voices, superimposed over footage of significant sites in Quebec’s history, devoid of people, including Calvary in Oka, the Grand Mosque of Quebec City, the Manic-5 Dam, Kahnawake, the hill on Berri St., Olympic Stadium, the shores of the Gaspé, and the National Assembly. No archival footage was used for this powerful, uncompromising piece of “indirect cinema.”
A film with a spare visual aesthetic and narration built from confessions and introspection, La fin des terres draws a map of Quebec and plunges viewers into a poetic self-examination of our community’s future. Faced with the previous generation’s failure to settle issues such as identity, nationhood, Indigenous peoples’ place in society, land appropriation, and the environment, these millennials, selected because they’ve pondered these questions, speak powerfully and aptly about the current state of affairs, which is felt rather than stated outright. It’s as if these young people were seeking to make room for what Quebec might become. Featuring the voices of Maïtée Labrecque-Saganash, Jean-François Ruel (a.k.a. Yes Mccan), Carl Bergeron, Nora Loreto, Mélanie Hotchkiss, Lucia Carballo, Sibel Ataogul, Jade Barshee, Aurélie Lanctôt, Catherine Dorion, Jonathan Durand Folco, Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Pierre-Luc Brisson, Alexandre Leduc, Léane Labrèche-Dor, Patricia Boushel, and Clara L’Heureux-Garcia.
The story behind RVQC 2019’s closing film
The film came out of NFB producer Colette Loumède’s desire to continue to recruit new talent. In 2015, her Repêchage initiative recruited three promising graduates in three different streams of UQAM’s media school—director Loïc Darses, editor Philippe Lefebvre, and cinematographer Charlotte Lacoursière—to work together on their first professional film at the NFB’s Documentary Studio.
World premiere of a feature-length documentary
La fille du cratère by Nadine Beaudet and Danic Champoux (76 min)
The film will be screened at the festival as part of a blue-carpet event at 6 p.m. on Monday, February 25, at the Cineplex Odéon Quartier Latin (theatre 10), attended by director and producer Nadine Beaudet, director Danic Champoux, producer Johanne Bergeron (NFB), and Yolande Simard-Perrault. Theatrical release: spring 2019.
This documentary is a touching account of Yolande Simard-Perrault’s quest for identity, and her influence on the oeuvre of Pierre Perrault, her partner and great love. Simard-Perrault is the “daughter of the crater”—the crater having been made by the meteor that struck the Baie-Saint-Paul region around 400 million years ago and shaped the Charlevoix region from which she hails. This bold, determined woman talks about the area and its imprint on our collective memory.
The film emerged from a collaboration between Nadine Beaudet and Danic Champoux, both of whom have won the Prix Pierre-et-Yolande-Perrault, awarded each year during RVQC. Yolande Simard-Perrault’s extraordinary vitality will thus be celebrated in a film premiering at the festival that awards a prize bearing her name.
Quebec premieres of feature documentaries
After their appearance at RVQC, both films will screen throughout French-speaking communities and will be broadcast on Unis TV.
Sans Maman by Marie-France Guerrette (72 min)
When Mona Guerrette died from breast cancer at age 42, she left behind a husband and two daughters. How do you survive such a heartbreaking loss when you’re only a child? In this touching documentary about her family, Marie-France Guerrette blends home-movie footage and interviews to give viewers a window onto her own personal experience of grief.
Les artisans de l’atelier by Daniel Léger (52 min)
Opening film – FICFA 2018
“We’re beautiful, the whole gang. We’re special,” says Jean of the 15-odd employees at The Artisan, a workshop in Memramcook that employs people with intellectual disabilities. Jean is the self-described “handyman and best-looking” member of the group. A moving celebration of difference, Les artisans de l’atelier captures daily life at an organization where the workers are as courageous as they are colourful.
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Check out our virtual press room for film synopses, bios, images and info on screenings at other festivals: mediaspace.nfb.ca
Please see attachment for a detailed screening schedule and links to online press files.
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Electronic Press Kit | Images, trailers, synopsis: A Delicate Balance | Bone Mother | Caterpillarplasty | First Stripes | Freaks of Nurture | My War |Pauline Julien, Intimate and Political | Roxham | The Artisans | The Devil’s Share |The Subject | Unmothered
Associated Links
Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma
Les vues du fleuve
Productions Avenida
Rendez-vous Pro
Cineplex Odéon Quartier Latin
Media Relations
For La fin des terres, Les artisans de l’atelier, Sans Maman, La part du diable and Roxham
Marie-Claude Lamoureux
NFB Publicist
Cell.: 514-297-7192
m.lamoureux@nfb.ca
For the animated shorts and the documentaries Pauline Julien, intime et politique, Premières armes and Ma guerre
Nadine Viau
NFB Publicist
Cell.: 514-458-9745
n.viau@nfb.ca
For La fille du cratère
Caroline Rompré
pixelleX, for the NFB
Tel.: 514-778-9294
caroline@pixellex.ca
facebook/pixellexRP – twitter/RP_pixelleX
For Point d’équilibre
Magalie Boutin
Head, Media Relations
Cell.: 514-233-8646
m.boutin@nfb.ca
Lily Robert
Director, Communications and Public Affairs, NFB
C.: 514-296-8261
l.robert@nfb.ca