I slipped on several Quebec films on the summer bill. They seemed to me more numerous than usual to reach the big screens in hot weather. Stéphanie Nolin, from Cinéac, assures me not. Same ratio! Mario Fortin, boss of Beaubien and two halls downtown, believes that the quality of many of them, along with event launches, gives the impression of a multitude. These works overshadow each other, in my opinion. Sending two or three back to the fall grid would have helped them breathe easier.
Rich people problems. Quebec cinema is doing well, even if the big screen has seen better days before the pandemic. confessions, by Luc Picard, in theaters since July 20, exceeded one million dollars in box office receipts. Its solid directing and Picard’s remarkable play as the hit man propelled him to the top of the Quebec hits of 2022. However, the game was not won for this biofilm of a timid and boring assassin. The paths to triumph are impenetrable.
Mario Fortin assures us, however: for a film to become a millionaire, it must appeal more outside major centers than in urban areas. However, in the region, confessions cardboard. As Arlette of Mariloup Wolfe, who could maintain his pace. This popular comedy got off to a good start. Over $118,000 in its first weekend. Arlette has its faults and its clichés, but it hit the headlines after a battle over its headliner. Valuable claim!
All in all, there is more diversity than before in the themes and styles of our films. The traditional quest for roots gives way to various fields of exploration. The dark tones give way to the extent of the chromatic range and more formal audacity. This summer, it is true. Filmmakers are breaking old molds.
In mid-June, Arsenault & sons, by Rafaël Ouellet, had started the season off well with the adventures of his raccoon clan with shady hunting stories. Then, the black comedy of reunion Vanishing lines, by Catherine Chabot and Myriam Bouchard, stood out. His scathing lines and good acting could have gotten him more of an audience, mind you. But, as Mario Fortin points out, this film is aimed at an age group, the thirties, who are less present in the cinema than their elders.
Since Friday, in the room, Louis Godbout poses his comedy The cheaters in a golf course, with colorful characters and funny adventures. A summer like this, by Denis Côté, all in poetry and social acuity, will attract from August 19 a clientele already familiar with his label. With their strengths and their weaknesses, summer Quebec films target different audiences, without generally laying their eggs in the usual baskets of easy comedy or overly clumsy drama.
It was still necessary to attract an audience of vacationers subscribed to the joys of the lake. Moreover, if the confinements are over, their effects continue. The seventh wave of COVID has chilled some moviegoers for much of the summer. In July, at Cineplex’s Latin Quarter, theaters were often crowded with sparse whiteheads. Difficult, throughout the year, to attract a young succession of spectators outside of American productions which create the trance. Generational divides overlap the seasons.
Still, Mario Fortin has seen his older regulars come back in force for two weeks at Beaubien and at the Musée du Cinéma. “In July, we blamed the weather, which was too good,” he recalls. When the seventh wave calmed down a bit and during the heat wave, our clientele returned to the cinema, more often masked than before, protected, but back. Barring new confinements, at the end of the year, we should find pre-pandemic recipes in theaters all over the planet. »
The share of Quebec films, increased in 2021, could remain high here, in his opinion. “We share the pie. Our seventh art attracts the public more when the other cinematographies are weaker, such as the French productions of the year. Apart from the triumph of Top Gun: Maverick, American films, shot during the health crisis, are also weakened. »
The edifice of Quebec cinema is still unstable, threatened by the change in audiences on platforms and the covid upheavals, but rather invigorated. He opens up, he takes risks. More than we expected after the years of crisis. A reluctance, a withdrawal towards proven recipes, was to be feared, but creativity took over. Like what, from the crucible of the test sometimes arises inspiration.