Forty years already that these appointments of Quebec cinema have existed. I will have experienced several vintages, successive administrations and the stormy transfers of power of this in-house festival, now under the Québec Cinéma banner. Through its window as throughout the months, I watched our seventh art advance, scroll, come back in force, lose the general public, find it again, produce pearls that are too confidential or not, haunting under the baton of Bernard Émond , explosive under that of Xavier Dolan, kaleidoscopic through the camera of Robert Morin, in artistic overlap with Sophie Deraspe.
It hangs by a thread, sometimes, the connection of the works with the public. This one often dreams of relaxing and savoring his comedies when many filmmakers invite him to capture the collective obsessions. A project manager must measure out the ingredients to make the counters vibrate in all directions, as in 2003 with The barbarian invasions and The great seduction. For two years, the pandemic has harmed works in theaters. We have to rebuild bridges.
But where Léa Pool, Mireille Dansereau and Micheline Lanctôt seemed isolated for a long time in the kingdom of fiction feature films, how female cinema has gained ground in four decades! This RVQC anniversary vintage kicked off on Wednesday with an excellent shocking film: Noémie says yes, the first feature film by filmmaker Geneviève Albert tackling juvenile prostitution, in theaters on April 29. We expect a lot ofInesthe film by Renée Beaulieu, premiered at Les Rendez-vous.
Sylvie Quenneville took the helm of the event, advancing on a path marked out by other lovers of Quebec cinema. So his festival delves into the past as much as the future. Does one go without the other?
Since its origins, the Rendez-vous, between primeurs and retrospective of the year, examine our seventh art. From its covid years, this last spring transformed, fragile and mature at the same time, more open to others, in discovery. Its rhythm had already changed, its construction was bursting, its images, its soundtracks shone for a long time.
Some people abroad ask me: how do you define your national cinema? I then explain her sources of direct social outreach, still alive even among the next generation, at Sophie Dupuis (Underground) specifically. In several tones, I will have seen this art probing our identity, its heroes traveling the roads in search of their roots and the missing father or mother. The recurring themes shed light on the traumas of society, but are also boring.
Our films speak most of the time Joual or Franglais and approach universes of misery in abundance. Few bookcases furnished in the background, except at Arcand and at Émond. More like a working-class fauna that toils, suffers, shouts, but is more mixed today. Not surprising that drunken birds by Ivan Grbovic against a background of immigration and a narrative mosaic was one of the flagship films of 2021. No wonder either that a round table welcomes these 40are Meet Indigenous filmmakers, including Alanis Obomsawin and Caroline Monnet, because First Peoples aren’t done filming.
The past, near or far, remains a bottomless crucible at RVQC. Tribute will be paid with the lit touch of the LNI to the late Jean-Marc Vallée, to whom this edition is dedicated. The filmmaker of CRAZY had become in the United States in the English language a great ambassador of our society, having compatriots work on his films, nourished by a sensitivity linked to his culture. Because there are many ways to feel Québécois. Jean-Claude Lauzon, who died tragically 25 years ago, whose A zoo at night brilliantly revisited the eternal father-son relationship — to be seen again at the Rendez-vous —, was so drunk.
Other missing, filmmaker Jean-Claude Lord, producer Rock Demers, documentary filmmaker Danic Champoux, will receive well-deserved hat-tricks. On the big screen, the public will see again or discoverThe luminous beast by Pierre Perrault as the Maria Chapdelaineby Gilles Carle, precursor of the adaptation by Sébastien Pilote. As for the eight short films by Denis Côté, will they not reveal the first steps behind the camera of the former film critic, who has become an explorer of the seventh art celebrated and awarded on the planet of festivals?
So much so that by going out to meet newcomers, such as Full time by Éric Gravel, shot in France and awarded in Venice, Very nice day by Patrice Laliberté, filmed on a cell phone, or The cheaters by Louis Godbout (closing), festival-goers will be able to dive further. Invited to better understand the shoulders on which today’s filmmakers have risen to see the distance.