From October 2004 to January 2005, filmmaker Mathieu Roy follows Quebec producer and director Francois Girard, while he puts on a Kafka show in Montreal, a multidisciplinary show in New York and a Wagner opera in Toronto.

Source: Library and Archives Canada - Canadian Feature Film Database (LAC)

Around the world, Canada is known for its beavers, Mounties and winter climate, in brief a boring country. However, a new image is emerging since in 2003, gay marriage was legalized and marijuana was decriminalized on the very same day. Then, Americans, citizens from “the land of the free”, flocked across the border to marry their same-sex partners, smoke marijuana or escape army service. Canada suddenly became cool. But within months, Canada re-criminalized marijuana and a new campaign emerged to stop gay marriage. A clear shift to the right.

Source: Library and Archives Canada - Canadian Feature Film Database (LAC)

Now that he has returned to the region where the ARDA-BAEQ experience took place (where all of the NFB’s first social unrest movies were made), the filmmaker shows what happens when Québec’s new socio-economic plan is put into effect: eleven towns along the Lower St. Lawrence Valley and in the Gaspé Peninsula are destroyed. The film focuses on the experiences of a small town named Saint-Octave-de-l’Avenir. This dramatic documentary serves as a warning: will the government’s new practice be to condemn towns, rural villages and country life in the name of bureaucracy?

This production presents the personal, militant views of an enthusiastic Québécois filmmaker. It is highly charged with emotion and philosophy against a consumer-based society that is perceived as the incarnation of evil. This film was made at a time when emotions were running particularly high in Québec, following the Crisis of October 1970.

Source: Library and Archives Canada - Canadian Feature Film Database (LAC)

Following the coup d'état in 1973, the Chilean navy used a ship, the Esmeralda, as a torture centre. Years later, victims attempt to get naval authorities to admit to what took place during those dark days

Source: Library and Archives Canada - Canadian Feature Film Database (LAC)

In the heart of multiethnic Parc-Extension quarter, one of the poorest in Montreal, children of diverse backgrounds attend the class of second year teacher Lise Coupal, a dedicated instructor of the École Barthélémy-Vimont Annexe. Throughout the school year, the documentary illustrates the difficulties of these students but also their progress. While French is not the mother tongue of most, it becomes their common language.

Source: Library and Archives Canada - Canadian Feature Film Database (LAC)