My ousted city. This is the shocking title of an intimate and touching documentary that was shot in the middle of a pandemic by two directors who wanted to document the housing crisis in Montreal by accompanying its victims in the street, or even in their homes where the threats of eviction.
Montreal may no longer really be “the last large, affordable city in North America,” as mentioned in this documentary, directed by Priscillia Piccoli and Laurence Turcotte-Fraser, which will premiere Friday during the 12e Quebec City Film Festival. The rapid rise in rents and insecurity since the start of the pandemic has increased the number of people experiencing homelessness in the metropolis, where, at the same time, many tenants are being evicted from their homes in a context of speculation. real estate.
“I think it would make me sick, moving. » These words, spoken by an elderly tenant of the Manoir Lafontaine, which has become a symbol of the resistance of tenants to the phenomenon of evictions, give a foretaste of the distress, but also of the determination which emerge from the numerous interviews carried out for this documentary , the filming of which stretched over two years.
Initially, Laurence Turcotte-Fraser wanted to make a documentary on the housing crisis in British Columbia, where real estate speculation has been wreaking havoc for years. “And there, I realized that the same phenomenon was happening in Montreal, in my city,” says the director, who had just completed her first feature film, The End of Wonderlandin 2021.
“I said to myself: ‘We have to do something’,” continues Mme Turcotte-Fraser, thus recognizing that his documentary aims to be “engaged”, without necessarily being “political”. “The reasons why we chose the protagonists, often, is because they were people who wanted to change things in their environment,” continues the young director.
The latter thus joined forces with emerging director Priscillia Piccoli, who had volunteered at the La Porte Ouvert center in the months preceding the filming of this documentary. This shelter found itself at the heart of the news after the death of Raphael André, a homeless indigenous person found frozen to death in January 2021 near the organization’s premises, which were then closed.
“In a big city like Montreal, that shouldn’t happen,” sighs Mme Piccoli, who was surprised to see how the Quebec metropolis had to set up numerous emergency shelters during the pandemic to meet growing demand. “It was necessary to document that, and that’s what got us derivatives »continues the young director.
In the heart of the storm
This documentary thus gives a large place to people experiencing homelessness, who are increasingly visible in the streets of Montreal. We notably witness the dismantling of the encampment on Notre-Dame Street, then that of the Steinberg woodland, where the camera accompanies street worker Guylain Levasseur in his efforts to come to the aid of people who, like him, are in a difficult situation. financially precarious.
The documentary does not include any interviews with experts or elected officials, even if solidarity MP Manon Massé appears several times in extracts from gatherings organized in support of the tenants of Manoir Lafontaine. The choral film thus only gives space to tenants and itinerants at the heart of the storm, whose destinies intertwine between two images of camps or demonstrations captured on the spot by the two directors, who alone carried out most of the filming and editing of this feature film.
“Often, a documentary on the housing crisis, we will expect statistics and interviews with experts. But we wanted to see what is hidden, what people do not want to show us behind the housing crisis and, on the other hand, what are the impacts of real estate speculation on people’s lives. explains Laurence Turcotte-Fraser.
The two directors also believe that the closeness that was created during filming between them and the protagonists contributed to the richness of this documentary. “Just because we have a mask on our face doesn’t mean we can’t feel human distress. I found that this was what nourished the environment,” notes M.me Turcotte-Fraser, who “felt a lot of heat” during the filming of this film, despite the health context in which it took place.
The two directors now hope that their documentary will contribute to fueling debates in the National Assembly on the housing crisis.