SAQ : 100 ans d’histoire (2021)

Resistance: Police Against the Wall

The new Longueuil police chief, Fady Dagher, is aware of the challenges he faces. Well positioned for the next five years, he intends to make great changes within this institution. This documentary is an intimate portrait of a man, a vision and an environment into which cameras do not often have access.

Alkohol

Alcohol: No substance in the world seems so familiar to us and is so incredibly diverse in its effect. Alcohol is available everywhere and this particular molecule has the power to affect all 200 billion neurons of our human brain in completely different ways. But hardly anyone calls alcohol a drug despite its psychoactive and cell-destroying effect. Why do we tolerate the death of three million people every year? Have we turned a blind eye to the dangers and risks for thousands of years? What role does the powerful alcohol industry play with an annual turnover of 1.2 trillion euros in this on-going concealment? The author, who himself enjoys having a drink, looks into the question why we drink at all, what alcohol does to us and to what extent the alcohol industry influences society and politics.

Tshiuetin

Take a breathtaking train a ride through Nothern Quebec and Labrador on Canada’s first First Nations-owned railway. Come for the celebration of the power of independence, the crucial importance of aboriginal owned businesses and stay for the beauty of the northern landscape.

Jack Kerouac's Road: A Franco-American Odyssey

Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs and interviews, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.

Briser le code

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Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

Une identité dans la diversité

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Prinzessinnenbad

A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.

Entretien en six temps avec Gilles Groulx

This feature-length documentary brings together six of the rare television interviews given by Gilles Groulx between 1966 and 1983. Through these interviews, the filmmaker's ethical and aesthetic concerns are revealed. A striking coherence emerges in his thinking regarding his conception of cinema and the role the filmmaker should play in his culture and society.

G7 Charlevoix : opération sécurité

The G7 Summit that will take place in Charlevoix will bring together the leaders of the globe’s 7 major industrial powers. Thanks to an exclusive access and privileged position within the RCMP, we will bring you in the heart of the preparation and security operation surrounding such an event. It’s a privileged access for the first time in Canada, a historic and unique moment in television.

Madwoman of God

This feature-length film tells the story of the passion between Marie de l’Incarnation, a mid-seventeenth-century nun and God, her "divine spouse." Fusing documentary and acting by Marie Tifo, whom we follow as she rehearses for this demanding role, the film paints an astonishing portrait of this mystic who abandoned her son and left France to build a convent in Canada, where she became the first female writer in New France.

L'angoisse du héron

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Fog in February

On the eve of the publication of a biography of Claude Jutra, one of the most famous and celebrated filmmakers in Quebec and Canada, a leak leaked to the press reveals that the book contains anonymous allegations of pedophile acts committed by the filmmaker. The rumor spread like lightning, suddenly igniting the entirety of Quebec society. By finding today some of the main witnesses propelled overnight into the heart of an unparalleled media tornado, the documentary reconstructs with archive images and other previously unpublished images, the sequence of events which led to a rewriting of the story.

Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the 70's Generation

Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.

Malartic

Ten years after an enormous open-pit gold mine began operations in Malartic, the hoped-for economic miracle is nothing more than a mirage. Filmmaker Nicolas Paquet explores the glaring contrast between the town’s decline and the wealth of the mining company, along with the mechanisms of an opaque decision-making system in which ordinary people have little say. Part anthropological study, part investigation into the corridors of power, Malartic addresses the fundamental issue of sustainable and fair land management.

L'école de demain

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Resources

Co-directors Hubert Caron-Guay and Serge-Olivier Rondeau follow migrant workers through the steps in the hiring process of a community-based employment assistance organization. The filmmakers highlight the migrants’ difficult path by capturing conversations between the future employees and the recruiters. Through images shot on a body camera and a minimalist observational approach, the film exposes harsh and poignant realities. It draws parallels between the changing of the seasons and the cycle of the cattle industry that begins with animals being raised and cared for at a ranch and ends with them being sent to the abattoir grimly looming in the background. Ressources is a sobering and thought-provoking work that gives a voice to those who are at the heart of the food system that sustains this country.

A Song for Quebec

Produced in 1988, this feature documentary presents a living history of Quebec's last 40 years as seen through the eyes of one couple. Pauline Julien and Gérald Godin, two Quebec artists, share their perspectives on the events that have marked Quebec's evolution. Julien, a singer, and Godin, a poet, express their love and passion for the province (and each other) while providing a unique take on the Quebec nationalist movement.

Of Whales, the Moon, and Men

At the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.

Gilles Vigneault : au coeur du pays

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Scotch: A Golden Dream

An impressive bottle of fine Scotch is in your hand. From barley to barrel, who made it and how did they do it?

Passages

Five women from the North to the South of Quebec embark on a multisport expedition following the Koroc river in Nunavik. Travelling together against adversity, this journey soon becomes one of self-discovery for each participant.

Boire

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La ferme et son état

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Action : The October Crisis of 1970

A long and thoughtful look at those desperate days of October 1970, when Montréal awaited the outcome of FLQ terrorist acts. This film puts the October Crisis in the long perspective of history. Compiled from news and other films, it shows independence movements past and present, and their leaders; it reflects the mingled relief, dismay, defiance, when the Canadian army came to Montréal; and it shows how political leaders viewed the intervention.

The Invisible Nation

The Algonquin once lived in harmony with the vast territory they occupied. This balance was upset when the Europeans arrived in the 16th century. Gradually, their Aboriginal traditions were undermined and their natural resources plundered. Today, barely 9,000 Algonquin are left. They live in about 10 communities, often enduring abject poverty and human rights abuses. These Aboriginal people are suffering the threat to their very existence in silence. Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie have decided to sound the alarm before it's too late.

60 Cycles

On your marks. Follow cyclists from 13 countries as they cover 2.400 km of Gaspé countryside in 12 days-a course longer than those of Italy, Belgium or Spain. The long shots of curving landscape and open road are set to a mesmerizing soundtrack in this documentary, and the results are spellbinding.

Cozic

Portrait of the Canadian artist duo Cozic, composed of Monic Brassard (1944) and Yvon Cozic (1942). United in life and creation, the couple works with industrial materials in vibrant colors to create ecological and playful artworks. From the carefree hippie years of the 1960s to major public art commissions, their work reflects the evolution of our relationship with nature and the industrial world. Today, from their remarkable estate in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle in the Eastern Townships, the duo is preparing for their major retrospective at the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec.

Ma Traversée

Ma traversée is a personal quest, filmed over 20 years, recounting the racial issues and privileges that have punctuated the filmmaker’s life in three French-speaking societies: Guadeloupe, France and Quebec. From her own story emerges the broader narrative of colonization, colorism, assimilation, integration and the social benefits of “race” and their impact even today. Brutalized by police officers in Montreal in December 2017 in front of witnesses, the filmmaker takes a step back to understand this gesture, which speaks to the social interpretation of skin color.

Les Rose

In October 1970, members of the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped and murdered Minister Pierre Laporte, part of an unprecedented crisis in Quebec. Fifty years later, Félix Rose tries to understand what could have led his father and uncle to commit such crimes. Thanks to his uncle Jacques, who agrees for the first time to speak on the subject, and to the traces left by his father Paul, he revives the heritage of a Quebec working class family. The fruit of ten years of research, Les Rose allows us to revisit a time and people that we knew through clichés, and gives a glimpse of the experiences of a rebellious youth and the crimes that followed.

After the Ballot

After the Ballot is a full-length documentary portraying the gruelling everyday life of two Members of Quebec's National Assembly who, although at opposite ends of the political spectrum, share the fact that their sole power lies in their convictions. One is Daniel Turp, the PQ Member for Mercier. The other is Charlotte L'Écuyer, Liberal MNA for Pontiac. The film aptly illustrates that ordinary MNAs have very little authority since the real power is held by ministers who are subject to the ups and downs of a globalized economy. Meanwhile, their fellow citizens keep asking for the impossible…

La couleur du temps

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