February 12, 2018 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
At the 2018 Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma (RVQC), Montreal audiences will have the chance to catch acclaimed NFB films that have screened in festivals across Quebec, Canada and the world. A total of 12 NFB films, plus a 360-degree documentary short, will be screening at this year’s event, which runs from February 21 to March 3. Making its world premiere, Patrick Bouchard’s animated short Le sujet (NFB) will open the festival alongside Bernard Émond’s fiction feature, Pour vivre ici. Samara Grace Chadwick’s feature-length documentary 1999 (Parabola Films/Beauvoir Films/NFB) will have its Quebec premiere.
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) lineup also includes two more documentary features, Michel La Veaux’s Labrecque, une caméra pour la mémoire (ACPAV/NFB) and Alanis Obomsawin’s Our People Will Be Healed (Le chemin de la guérison) (NFB), as well as eight animated shorts: Dominic Etienne Simard’s Charles (DES animations/Les Films de l’Arlequin/NFB), Ehsan Gharib’s Deyzangeroo (NFB), Eva Cvijanović’s Hedgehog’s Home (La maison du hérisson) (Bonobostudio/NFB), Éléonore Goldberg’s Mon yiddish papi (My Yiddish Papi) (Picbois Productions/NFB), Patrick Péris’ Nadine (NFB), Torill Kove’s Threads (Rubans) (Mikrofilm AS/NFB), Matthew Rankin’s TESLA: LUMIÈRE MONDIALE (THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT) (NFB) and Keyu Chen’s Un printemps (Winds of Spring) (NFB). André Roy’s 360 documentary short, La 3e roue, will also be presented as an installation throughout the festival, and renowned Indigenous documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin will give a master class.
Opening film – World Premiere
Preceding Bernard Émond’s feature Pour vivre ici
Le sujet by Patrick Bouchard (10 min)
Our memories and experiences are recorded in our skin, in our body, in our being. What happens to them when we turn to dust?
A body lies on an autopsy table. As a man begins to examine the inanimate form, he witnesses something amazing, and the rigor of scientific inquiry gives in to the whimsy of artistic experience. Piercing the skin, cutting the tissues, probing the entrails, his scalpel frees otherworldly elements. A simple autopsy becomes a teeming, visceral introspection.
Biographies, images: mediaspace.nfb.ca/the-subject
Documentary feature – Quebec Premiere
1999 by Samara Grace Chadwick (90 min)
When death haunts a high school in Moncton in the late 1990s, everyone in this Acadian community is forever transformed. In this gentle, prismatic film, director Samara Grace Chadwick returns to the town she fled as a teen to re-immerse herself in the memories still lurking there. The absences left by the relentless teenage suicides still shimmer with questions, trauma and regret. Samara encounters people who are as breathtaking as they are heartbroken, and, finally, 16 years later, the community strengthens itself by sharing the long-silenced memories. Ultimately the film weaves together multiple voices in a collective essay on how grief is internalized—and how, as children, we so painfully learn to articulate our desire to stay alive.
Biographies, images: 1999
Check out our virtual press room for film synopses, bios, images and info on screenings at other festivals:
http://mediaspace.nfb.ca/
360 documentary short
André Roy’s La 3e roue will be presented throughout the festival at the Cinémathèque québécoise’s Salle Raoul-Barré.
Alanis Obomsawin master class
Acclaimed Indigenous documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin will give a master class on Saturday, February 24, the day after a screening of her 50th film, Our People Will Be Healed (Le chemin de la guérison).
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