A coproduction of the National Film Board of Canada, Coop Vidéo de Montréal, Akka Films, Temps Noir, in collaboration with TV5 MONDE 

2015. Eleven students at Montreal’s Collège de Maisonneuve are arrested as they prepare to leave for Syria, where they plan to become Islamic State fighters. The student body—more than 50 percent of which is composed of Muslims of Arab descent—is deeply shocked. Over six episodes, Maisonneuve looks at the repercussions of this event and the questions it continues to raise, introducing us to five young adults who are trying to find their way in an environment where mistrust of the “other” is the norm.

Filmed over several years, Maisonneuve drops us into the culturally pluralistic college as it picks up the pieces after the trauma of 2015. The protagonists’ early opinions become more nuanced, revealing a maturity that reflects their journeys. We witness as their thinking evolves and becomes marked by a real openness to others.

The series takes us into the heart of the dialogue between different factions, as the college creates a safe space for the exchange of ideas in order to foster debate and reduce tensions among students. With its humanistic approach, Maisonneuve highlights both the importance and the fragility of living together in harmony in Quebec.

WATCH THE SERIES

2015. Eleven students at Montreal’s Collège de Maisonneuve are arrested as they prepare to leave for Syria, where they plan to become Islamic State fighters. The shocking development affects everyone and exacerbates tensions already present at the school, where more than half the students are Muslims of Arab descent. Maisonneuve looks into the repercussions of this significant event and at the important questions it continues to raise. We meet Kaëlla, Rayene, Idir, Stéphanie and Samuel, young adults trying to find their way in a highly strained environment, where mistrust of the “other” is the norm. “We kind of became the lab rats of radicalization,” Rayene says.

Filmed over several years, this six-episode series takes us into the culturally pluralistic Collège de Maisonneuve, as the school picks up the pieces after the trauma of 2015. The series offers unprecedented access to the daily lives of students with different backgrounds and opinions. Each of the protagonists offers smart and nuanced views on their lives in their late teens, revealing a maturity that reflects their own journeys. We see how their thinking evolves, and how their reflections become marked by a real openness to others.

Maisonneuve looks at the dialogue that begins among the various groups. “Giving young people permission to say what they think, to say they don’t agree, is a good thing in a modern society that wants to grow and that considers itself open and democratic,” says Momo, a school social worker . By allowing them to express themselves and creating safe spaces for dialogue, the College fosters debate in order to deconstruct persistent myths and reduce tensions among members of the student body. With its humanistic approach, Maisonneuve highlights both the importance and the fragility of living together in harmony in Quebec.

One liner
Maisonneuve highlights the importance—and the fragility—of living together in harmony in Quebec, examining the fallout of a shocking event that shook Collège de Maisonneuve.

Two liner
Over six episodes, Maisonneuve looks at the repercussions flowing from the arrest of 11 students at Montreal’s Collège de Maisonneuve as they prepared to join the ranks of the Islamic State in Syria. From the initial shock to a gradual opening for dialogue, the series follows the paths of six exceptional young people who share their points of view. Through their eyes, Maisonneuve highlights both the importance and the fragility of living together in harmony in Quebec.

EPISODE 1  Collateral Damage
Collège de Maisonneuve is shaken by a shocking turn of events. Both students and faculty are deeply affected and try to make sense of this disturbing development.

EPISODE 2  Systemic Problems
The student association engages in critical self-assessment over diversity and considers the best way forward. Meanwhile, students question the association’s practices.

EPISODE 3  Intergenerational Conflicts
Different generations come together to discuss major issues, revealing wildly divergent points of view. How can we live together while respecting each other’s differences?

EPISODE 4  Collective Responsibilities
The 2017 Quebec mosque attack renews the debate over radicalization. In this tension-filled period, the Maisonneuve community finds itself grappling with questions of personal and social responsibility.

EPISODE 5  Rebuilding Relationships
Police Tech students meet with members of an Algonquin community. They learn about the realities of minority groups… and the consequences of not following the rules.

EPISODE 6  Daring to Risk Failure
Students take stock of their turbulent time at Maisonneuve. They reveal how the remarkable and striking events of the last two years—and the reflections they brought on—have influenced their own journeys.

What drove you to go back to the question of how we live together as a society, following the events of 2015?

It was interesting to see how the college reacted to the crisis. Instead of behaving like all of our fine major public institutions and responding with repression, it opted instead for a more democratic approach—one based on listening and sharing ideas—in order to understand what had happened.

This context of openness seemed to us to offer an opportunity to tell the story of contemporary Quebec, to look more broadly at the question of the multiplicity of individual identities in the province and what part they play in a collective identity. The college is at the heart of a society in the midst of a period of change and cultural turbulence. It represents a turning point in the lives of young people facing challenges, like social exclusion, which can leave them susceptible to radicalization—not only in terms of politics, but, more importantly, in terms of their identity.

Why was it important to you that we hear the voices of young people whose points of view are at times diametrically opposed to each other?

First of all, because we couldn’t avoid them. We hung around in the hallways with a film crew, without really knowing who would turn out to be our protagonists. It became clear who they would be through their desire to speak in the public spaces we were in. Of course we had to make choices, and the idea was to not have five similar characters. So the diversity of points of view went hand in hand with the diversity of our protagonists.

I find it interesting that this observation and this question seem to come up a lot, because, fundamentally, they often agreed with each other. I think that, like the people, the subjects in a sense made themselves unavoidable, too. Subjects on which there was consensus were cut in editing. Consensus is pretty boring, especially in a series that wants to get people talking about ideas, playing with nuance, and taking the time to think about matters that are complex and filled with shades of grey.

Your series highlights a divergence of opinions, but there’s also something all your protagonists have in common: openness. What does being open to the other mean in a context like this?

I believe that documentaries have no choice but to present ‘openness’ on the screen. First of all, the protagonists are revealing their private, intimate selves to us, to the camera, to the film crew, to the audience. It’s natural that, in that context, those who are featured in the series will have personalities that tend towards openness to the other.

Furthermore, openness was an essential part of the sequences at L’entr’actes, the spot at the school where young Arab Muslims would hang out, and where we filmed some of their conversations. The young people showed a lot of openness in welcoming a film crew made up 100 percent of white people—especially in the period after the events, when the media associated their school and their community with the Islamic State for no valid reason.

It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that we’d get the participation of the student association either, because they were very concerned about media attention. The students were often depicted as radical communists. We had to convince them of our good intentions, while explaining that we would also be following students at the college who were overtly opposed to them. It was complicated.

The students in police tech also showed a lot of openness in letting us follow them over four days, while they travelled to an Algonquin community where allegations of sexual abuse and abuses of power weighed on them.

You knew you were venturing into often delicate subject matter. How did you approach students so that they were comfortable and felt they could speak from the heart?

I liked them. And I still like them. Despite my own biases, my opinions, and my culture—which are in many ways profoundly different from theirs—there’s something I admire in each and every one of them, and I feel a lot of affection for them. I started by building relationships based on our common links—what united us. Later, we were able to get into subjects that were more contentious and complicated, subjects on which we often differed. That took a few interviews and filmed moments that nobody will ever see. For me, it’s the same as the normal process of developing a friendship; when you’ve created a connection of trust, you can discuss anything.

What message does your series have for educational institutions that find themselves dealing with a similar situation, in which the student body is deeply divided?

To be happy about it. To take advantage of those divisions and see them as an opportunity to foster discussions and create opportunities for positive encounters. To engage with participants who want to be a part of this

great process of reflection, and who, like the young people in the series, have maintained that passion and desire to change the world.

Do you believe openness and dialogue are really the first steps towards lowering tensions?

Yes, but I think we don’t have any choice but to first go through the ‘tensions.’ That’s the starting point that makes dialogue possible and ensures the openness is genuine. Simplistic openness can be facile and puerile. Like someone who says, ‘I don’t see skin colour. I don’t make any distinction.’ It’s absurd. You can’t come to openness in advance. Everyone has biases, opinions and prejudices, and you have to put them to the test before others. When we talk about dialogue, we’re also talking about confrontation and intensity. It’s not just a walk in the park.

College is the last real meeting place and place for dialogue in our society. People from all social classes are there. It’s the only place accessible to all, and the only place where this confrontation could have been managed.

Before you can call yourself ‘open,’ you have to genuinely live with others.

What do you hope audiences take away from the series?

That living together is not easy! Often, when conservative-leaning pundits rail against ‘woke’ culture, their critique consists of saying that students are wearing rose-coloured glasses, that they think everyone is nice and friendly, and that they’re overly empathetic. With this series, I hope people can understand that these ideas travel a long way before they wind up in our most popular media spaces. That they are debated and constantly questioned. That people experience them in their daily lives before they become values.

And what about you? What do you take away from your encounters with these five bright young people?

A great sense of confidence in this generation.

Contact NFB publicist for high-resolution poster for print.

Contact NFB publicist for high-resolution images and poster for print.