The 40and edition of the International Festival of Films on Art, which takes place from March 15 to 27, is the most abundant in its history. To help you find your way around, our dance, visual arts and music critics have spotted a few must-haves.
Léa Villalba’s dance selection
Emersion. Director Aline-Sitoé N’Diaye immerses us in the daily life of Yaa, a 15-year-old mixed-race girl who doesn’t like who she is. She is confronted with her skin color when she discovers, in a store, the shades of ballet slippers.
At the McCord Museum on March 17, as part of the event Danced films and society: for a new impact
The night of the dance. Mélanie Demers, Édouard Lock, Hofesh Shechter and many others will be honored on this night of dance celebration. About twenty films from the program will be shown on the big screen. A good way not to miss anything!
At the Outremont theater on March 18, from 5:30 p.m.
Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra. In this cinematic proposal, Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin explore the loss and the reconquest of Aboriginal culture. They follow the three founding brothers of the Australian Aboriginal contemporary dance company Bangarra Dance Theater and reveal how they managed to renew themselves over time to become an internationally renowned institution.
Online from March 16, or at the Outremont theater on March 19
Body-Buildings. Merging dance, cinema and architecture is the challenge that Portuguese director Henrique Pina has set himself. On six works of architecture, in his native country, he films dancing artists appropriating the space and developing a hovering, impressive dance.
Online from March 16, or at the Canadian Center for Architecture on March 26
The Swan at the Mouth of the River. This cinematographic work immerses itself in the end of a career, the last stage appearance of the artist Bernd Burgmaier who puts on his pointe shoes to interpret The Dying Swan. This docu-dance retraces the end and the continuation of the trajectory of a dancer, highlighting the binary perceptions of gender and life.
Online from March 16, or at the Museum cinema on March 26
Philippe Renaud’s music selection
Laurent Garnier: Off the Record. A pioneer of French house, the composer and DJ pioneered this music in the mid-1980s, earning recognition along the way from his illustrious peers Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Ellen Alien and Richie Hawtins, who all testified in front of the camera of documentary filmmaker Gabin Rivoire .
At the Outremont theater on March 19
LICHT Stockhausen’s Legacy. Dutch director Oeke Hoogendijk chronicles the feat of the Dutch National Opera in creating the colossal opera for the first time (29 hours) Light of the mythical contemporary German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who died before such an enterprise could see the light of day.
At the Museum cinema on March 20
The visual arts selection of Nicolas Mavrikakis
Restore? Africa in search of its masterpieces. If you still doubt the relevance of returning African works of art to their country of origin, you have to see this documentary by Nora Philippe. Bronzes from Benin, royal treasures from Abomey… “Hundreds of thousands of African works and objects live today in our museums in the West”, specifies the film. A looting that was mainly done during colonial invasions. A punchy movie.
At the Museum cinema on March 25
The museum and the nonconformist billionaire. “Money Creates Taste,” 1990s artist Jenny Holzer sarcastically wrote in one of her famous truisms. With the explosion of the prices of works on a delirious, speculative art market that often values the mediocre, will museums be subject to the good – and especially the bad – taste of hyperfricated collectors? This is what Olivier Lemaire’s film will leave an impression on us. We follow the evolution of the new Bourse de commerce / Pinault collection museum in Paris in 2021, designed by the architect Tadao Ando. The best rubs shoulders with the worst.
At the Canadian Center for Architecture on March 27
Still Max. For nearly 50 years, Max Dean has produced performances, installations, art videos, photographs, interactive works that have marked the history of Canadian art. His Robotic Chair which dismembers and rebuilds itself is a major work. This film by Katherine Knight speaks above all of her recent work, but makes connections between her creation and her personal life, in particular with her way of artistically approaching her prostate cancer.
At the Canadian Center for Architecture on March 19
experimental fifa. C urator Nicole Gingras has selected seven experimental films directed by Charlotte Clermont, Nayla Dabaji, Guillaume Vallée… We will notice International Dawn Chorus Day (2021), by John Greyson, where birds dialogue during an online video meeting. Celebrating freedom while humans were isolated due to COVID-19? Much more than that. The birds actually talk about the filmmaker Shady Habash, who died in a prison in Egypt, as well as the writer and activist Sarah Hegazi, also imprisoned and tortured in the same country.
At the Outremont theater on March 17
Joan Mitchell. A woman in abstraction. She was thea of the greatest abstract artists of the 20th century. This statement, which does not correspond to the rules of inclusive writing, respects Mitchell’s desire, who did not want to be reduced to the ghetto of “women artists”. In the 1950s there were critics who dared to claim that women could not paint. And the galleries of the time did not take more than two women in the group of artists they defended. “It was their quota,” says Mitchell in this film by Stéphane Ghez.
At the Museum cinema on March 26