Cinemania French-speaking film festival | Songs chosen for successful releases

From 1^er to November 12, the 29^e edition of Cinemania offers the cream of French-speaking cinema from here and elsewhere. Here are our suggestions for films and special evenings to put in your calendar.

Time to loveby Katell Quillévéré

Time to love begins brutally with archive images showing the mown ground of the Liberation before plunging painfully into fiction. Single mother, Madeleine (Anaïs Demoustier) meets François (Vincent Lacoste), a bourgeois student, at the hotel-restaurant where she is a waitress. Although she reveals the origins of his son to him, Vincent wishes to marry Madeleine. Soon, she realizes that her husband is hiding a dark secret from her. Inspired in part by his grandmother’s story and the great melodramas of Douglas Sirk (Time to love and time to die), the director ofA violent poison signs a cruel and powerful love story against a backdrop of intolerance.

At the Imperial cinema on November 3, 3 p.m., and November 4, 8:15 p.m.

The most beautiful to go dancingby Victoria Bedos

First feature film from one of the screenwriters of The Aries family, by Éric Lartigau, this charming sentimental comedy cheerfully borrows from the codes of American teen comedies. Following the advice of her best friend Albert (Pierre Richard), an octogenarian homosexual, Marie-Luce (Brune Moulin) disguises herself as a boy to go to a costume party. However, the unpopular teenager achieves great success with the girls… and with Émile (Loup Pinard), the boy she likes. If The most beautiful to go dancing does not reinvent the genre, it sensitively sketches a touching relationship between a jilted father (Philippe Katherine) and his clever daughter.

At the Imperial cinema on November 8, 10 a.m., and at the Museum cinema on November 9, 5:30 p.m.

You’ll never knowby Robin Aubert

At the height of the pandemic, an old man confined to his room at the CHSLD (Martin Naud) has only one idea in mind: finding his lover. As the hours pass slowly, only a volunteer (Sarah Keita) and a concierge (Jean-Marie Lapointe) bring him a little human warmth. In this radical and daring proposal evoking the cinema of Pedro Costa (Forward, youth) and Robert Morin (Little Pow! Pow! Christmas), the director ofAt the origin of a cry powerfully demonstrates the flaws in the health system. A perfect complement to Denys Desjardins’ documentary I placed my mother.

At the Imperial cinema on November 10, 6 p.m., and at the Modern cinema on November 11, 1:30 p.m.

Out of seasonby Stéphane Brizé

Mathieu (Guillaume Canet), film actor, and Alice (Alba Rohrwacher), piano teacher, fell in love 15 years ago. Coming from Paris to undergo thalassotherapy in a seaside town on the west coast of France, Mathieu meets Alice again, married and mother of a teenager. Lulled by the melancholy piano of Vincent Delerm, bathed in a soft light, Out of season is based on sensitive dialogues launched in a playful tone and eloquent silences. The great master of social dramas (The law of the market) signs an atypical sentimental comedy where he revisits with the same delicacy themes exploited in Miss Chambon.

At the Museum cinema on November 10, 8:15 p.m., and November 11, 5:45 p.m.

I am Franceby Sarah El Attar

It is not only in North America that people of color are victims of police brutality. In France, each year, 20 to 30 people die as a result of violent arrest, and 80% of the victims are black or Arab. In this documentary with sumptuous black and white images, the director of Togaether, where she was interested in the Muslim community in the United States, gives voice to people who have lost a loved one at the hands of the police. To support their words, she also collects testimonies from young people who are constantly victims of racial profiling. Sad and revolting.

At the Museum cinema on November 11, 6:30 p.m.

Kabaret Kino evening, Great evening of Quebec shorts and the series FEM

Beyond feature film screenings, other activities take place at Cinemania. Note a Kabaret Kino Evening (November 2) during which short films brought together under the theme will be presented Montreal Chronicles and the results of the Kino challenge: tributes to American films reimagined in the style of French-speaking filmmakers. For the Great Evening of the Quebec Court (November 3), Jason Béliveau, editor-in-chief of the magazine Sequences and associated programmer, invites film buffs to discover, in Montreal or Quebec premieres, 11 Quebec short films. And the first four episodes of the series FEMwhere Lenni-Kim Lalande plays a young person questioning his gender identity in a musical drama by Maxine Beauchamp and Marianne Farley, will be screened (November 3).