August 20, 2026 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Two NFB films by directors at the height of their craft, each with their own distinctive style, are among the first five titles announced by the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) for its 29th edition, taking place November 19 to 29, 2026.
- Platforms, a short film by acclaimed experimental filmmaker Karl Lemieux, is a sensory meditation that merges metal, oil and water. It was shot on the sea off the coast of Scotland, where decommissioned oil and gas platforms are being dismantled.
- During the festival, Platforms will also be presented as an installation at the artist-run centre OBORO, on Berri St. in Montreal.
- The feature documentary Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, by established director Matthew Rankin, is a psychedelic doomscroll that reinvents the flamboyant rise of the man born to be Canada’s 18th prime minister. Its RIDM screening will follow its world premiere in the prestigious Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Platforms by Karl Lemieux (20 min 46 s)
Produced at the NFB by Mélanie Brière
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/platforms
Out in the North Sea, off the shores of Scotland, workers are busy taking apart decommissioned oil and gas platforms, piece by piece.
Working with Swedish soundscape artist BJ Nilsen, Karl Lemieux has assembled images shot on 16-mm film, sounds and textures into a poetic documentary portrait of a gigantic worksite on the high seas.
These majestic vistas of workers painstakingly dismantling a steel behemoth on six concrete legs are like living tableaux, capturing the embodiment of industrial excess and destruction while placing these extremely unsightly objects under the magnifying glass. Platforms is a physical, corporeal and, ultimately, deeply human experience set against the wreckage of the petroleum industry.
About Karl Lemieux
Karl Lemieux (Quiet Zone, Shambles) is a filmmaker and performer known for his live collaborations with post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor. His experimental documentaries explore natural and industrial materials and the ruins of the Anthropocene. His films and installations have been presented at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna and the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney by Matthew Rankin (105 min)
Produced at the NFB by Pierre-Mathieu Fortin
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/ladies-and-gentlemen-brian-mulroney
Once upon a time, there was a boy from Baie-Comeau who grew up to be a paradox of a man—a flamboyant yet modest man whose journey embodied the dream of a Progressive Conservative Canada. An astoundingly charismatic, perfectly bilingual man who, in the wake of the 1980 Quebec referendum, embarked on a seemingly impossible mission to unite a fragmented country.
A psychedelic doomscroll that blends historical narrative and glitchcore video, Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney revisits the rise of the 18th prime minister of Canada and reconnects us with the essence of his character: his innate sense of spectacle.
Drawing on some 80,000 pieces of archival material, Matthew Rankin deploys all manner of animation techniques as well as audio and video textures—from 16-mm clips to abstract VHS segments—almost to the point of sensory saturation.
About Matthew Rankin
Winnipeg-born, Montreal-based Matthew Rankin studied Quebec history at McGill University and Université Laval. His work has been presented at festivals including TIFF, Sundance, SXSW, Annecy, the Berlinale and Cannes (as part of both Critics’ Week and the Directors’ Fortnight). His debut feature, The Twentieth Century, won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, while his second feature, Universal Language, earned him the Chantal Akerman audience award at Cannes as well as the 2024 Best Canadian Discovery Award at TIFF.
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Press release – PDF here.
Version française ici.