42nd International Cinema Festival in Abitibi-Témiscamingue | You will excuse the cliché

(Rouyn-Noranda) A log cabin overlooking a lake in the middle of the forest. This is the image I had of Abitibi-Témiscamingue. And one of the images – you’ll excuse the cliché – that I will remember from 42^e International Cinema Festival in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (FCIAT), which ends Thursday.

Thanks to La Watch, the professional aspect of the FCIAT led by Danny Lennon, young short film filmmakers were able to meet, listen to established artisans of Quebec cinema and discuss with them, in an informal and relaxed setting – sofas, beanbags, beer in the fridge – favorable to dialogue and confidence.

A magnificent chalet on the edge of a lake, in the woods, a portrait of Richard Desjardins on the wall (!), and frank and stimulating discussions around the fireplace. With actors (Martin Dubreuil, Larissa Corriveau), producers (Guillaume Lspérance, Sylvain Corbeil), screenwriters and directors (Robin Aubert, Miryam Bouchard, Pascal Plante, Mariloup Wolfe, Denis Côté, Vincent Biron, Ariane Louis-Seize, Erik K. Boulianne, etc.), without forgetting the Oscar-winning artistic director of DunePatrice Vermette.

We were far from attending a polite master class or a traditional press conference, but rather generous open-ended discussions about the backstage of the profession, with agreements, disagreements, and an irresistible response song (courtesy of Robin Aubert) , as well as some inevitable gnashing of teeth.

At any time, anyone could intervene to question a more or less widespread practice on film sets – directing with many or very few indications, starting with a wide shot or not, etc. –, criticize ways of doing things in the industry, even those advocated by his colleagues, present here around the dining room table…

A fascinating time-lapse film course, spread over two days, coupled with an inventory of Quebec cinema without prevarication, undoubtedly stimulated by this feeling of being among oneself, in a welcoming and bright chalet in the Abitibi forest .

This intimacy, this familiarity, is among the assets of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue International Cinema Festival which, while failing to attract films as highly anticipated as the Festival du nouveau cinéma or Cinemania, creates the ideal conditions for meaningful encounters.

The exceptional hospitality of the FCIAT team and its volunteers – another cliché which is confirmed – is undoubtedly an element which explains the longevity and success of the festival. “We see the volunteers age with us. Several have been there from the beginning,” Jacques Matte, one of the three co-founders of the event, with Louis Dallaire and Guy Parent, told me.

They live up to their reputation. Guests are literally taken care of, as soon as they arrive at the airport, by these volunteers. Guest of the annual FCIAT brunch, masterfully led by filmmaker and cinema professor Martin Guérin, Charles-Olivier Michaud declared that Rouyn-Noranda had nothing to envy of Cannes in terms of welcoming its guests. He’s not wrong.

Michaud (Snow and Ashes, Anna) was on hand on Sunday to discuss, with author Kim Thúy, the adaptation he produced of the bestselling novel Rua cross, he says, between The tuque war And Apocalypse Now. ” It’s exactly that ! “, exclaimed Kim Thúy in front of a packed conference room.

“I wanted to capture the beauty in what is very banal and create visual poetry that is both close and far from the book,” added Charles-Olivier Michaud about the adaptation of this novel which reads “ like a photo book.

Kim Thúy, who has a unique talent for identifying this poetry of everyday life, said that upon arriving in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, a festival volunteer, the driver manager Roger Beaulieu, noticed that they were crossing a “cloud of snow” on the road. “Maybe Roger didn’t realize it was poetry!” »

The exchange, necessarily lively and comical, but also moving, between the filmmaker and the author made us really want to discover Ru, which is due to be released on November 24. The film was unfortunately not presented to the public in Rouyn-Noranda, a strategic decision by its distributor which seems regrettable to me.

The 42^e FCIAT was unique in that it presented a meeting with craftsmen without the film which serves as a pretext for their presence. And that, on the contrary, he presented in the opening film a biographical film that could not be more conventional, Abbé Pierre: a life of struggle by Frédéric Tellier, in the absence of its director and its main actors, Benjamin Lavernhe (excellent) and Emmanuelle Bercot, herself a renowned filmmaker.

Rather mawkish and academic films that never end, I’ve often seen them at the opening of a film festival. Whether in Cannes, where Abbé Pierre: a life of struggle was presented as a world premiere in Berlin, Venice and Toronto. We won’t make a big deal out of it.

Guests, moreover, are not what was missing at 42^e FCIAT. In addition to the aforementioned Quebec artisans, I met in Abitibi the Frenchman Olivier Babinet, director of the touching apprenticeship film Normalfeaturing Benoit Poelvoorde and Justine Lacroix, as well as the Belgian-Kurd Sahim Omar Kalifa, who came presented Baghdad Messiabout a young Iraqi who had his leg amputated during the American occupation (a film which finds particular resonance in the context of the bombings in the Gaza Strip).

My favorite among the films I discovered in Rouyn-Noranda? An absolutely charming Quebec short film, dead cat, by Témiscabitibians Annie-Claude Caron and Danick Audet, winners of the prize for best short fiction film at the most recent Tribeca Festival. The story, as its name suggests, of a dead cat and the incredible strategies of parents (Pierre-Yves Cardinal and Léane Labrèche-Dor) not to announce it to their little daughter (Lilas-Rose Cantin).

“I’m festival age. My passion for cinema was born here, at 4 years old, listening to André Melançon talk about The tuque war », declared at the opening night the filmmaker Annie-Claude Caron, whose father and uncles were FCIAT volunteers. This festival is a family, she added, moved.

We are welcomed there like family. This is the main image that I will remember from this short stay in Rouyn-Noranda. You will excuse, once again, the cliché.