Indoor screenings, discussions, 5 to 7, the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma are back to normal for their 40th anniversary. From April 20 to 30, the event brought together more than 300 works and will highlight the rising generation, pay tribute to the great deceased — including Jean-Marc Vallée — and will also present a film shot entirely with a cell phone.
Posted at 2:55 p.m.
In January, when the theaters were closed again, the organization of Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma (RVQC) decided to move for a few weeks. The festival, which should have taken place at the end of February, has been postponed to the end of April. “We made the daring bet that we would have free rein to make the event we wanted. It seems that we made the right decision,” rejoices Olivier Bilodeau, its programming director.
Offering indoor screenings, discussions and other opportunities to meet artisans is in the DNA of the event launched in 1982, recalls Olivier Bilodeau. “It’s in our name, he argues, we’re called meetings. Thus, it is indeed in theaters that moviegoers are invited, especially at the Monument-National, the Cinémathèque québécoise and the Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin.
Hints of the pandemic, most of the films will also be available online across Canada (at rendez-vous.quebeccinema.ca) for people who can’t get around and those who aren’t ready to sit down yet. in a cinema. This is, for the moment, a temporary measure and not a strategy that must continue in the long term.
“We believe in indoor cinema, we believe in meetings, in meetings, it’s part of our DNA, insists Olivier Bilodeau. We don’t just want it to be an encounter between the spectator and the image on the screen, we want to experience cinema together. We want to put our energies into making an indoor festival and creating events. »
77 primeurs
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE RVQC
Noémie says yes
Of the 320 works on its programme, 77 are premiered, including Noémie says yes, a punchy film, we sense when watching its trailer, which shows how Noémie gets caught in the web of a pimp. It’s a film “which grips”, agrees the director of programming, but “which is also full of sensitivity and hope”.
This first film by Geneviève Albert stars Kelly Depeault, a revelation at the last Iris awards ceremony. By selecting it as the opening film, the RVQC want to put forward the “cinema of renewal”, the rising generation of creators, says Olivier Bilodeau.
This desire to look to the future, or at least to the resourcefulness of the younger generation, is also felt behind the presentation of Very nice daythe second film by Patrice Laliberté, who made a name for himself with Until the decline, the first Quebec film distributed on Netflix. After the world of survivalists, the director seems to be exploring that of conspirators (“Since 2012, we’ve been living in a simulation,” says the trailer).
“This film has the distinction of having been filmed entirely with a cell phone. Patrice and his actor, Guillaume Laurin, and other people from his production team will come and talk to us about it as part of a cinema lesson, underlines the director of programming for the RVQC. We thought it was important to highlight this new guard who uses the tools at his disposal. »
The 40are RVQC will also premiere InesRenée Beaulieu’s third film, The cheatersa satirical comedy by Luc Godbout with Christine Beaulieu, among others, and Humusby Carole Poliquin, a documentary about the health of agricultural soils.
Tributes
PHOTO JEAN GOUPIL, PRESS ARCHIVES
A tribute will also be paid to Jean-Claude Lauzon, who died 25 years ago this year.
No film by Jean-Marc Vallée, who died in December, is on the RVQC program, but this edition is dedicated to him. His memory will be celebrated in particular through an evening of improvisation (an art he apparently practiced in his youth) inspired by his cinema. We will highlight the contribution of Rock Demers and Jean-Claude Lord with the presentation of The frog and the whaleproduced by the first and directed by the second.
A tribute will also be paid to Jean-Claude Lauzon, who died 25 years ago this year, with the presentation of his two short films (piwi and super mayor) and his two feature films: A zoo at night (which is celebrating its 35th anniversary) and Leolo (of which it is the 30and birthday).
What remains of this filmmaker more than two decades after his death? Olivier Bilodeau dodges: “We are going to have a round table to talk about it! Producer Roger Frappier, actor Gaston Lepage (a good friend of Lauzon), editor Michel Arcand and director of photography Guy Dufaux will be part of the discussion moderated by Nathalie Petrowski.