The 43rd Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) is pleased to announce the first wave of films from Quebec and Canada in our lineup. Once again this year, the Festival will be putting local cinema in the limelight by screening some much-awaited works spread out over several programs, including the International Competition – Louve d’or, Focus, FNC Lab, Panorama and Special Presentation for the features as well as a variety of short film programs.
The FNC will present the much-awaited Félix and Meira (Félix et Meira),the new film by Maxime Giroux (whose Jo pour Jonathan was shown in 2010), the tale of an unlikely romance between a woman from the Hassidic Jewish community and a lonely young man mourning his absent father; Love in the Time of Civil War (L’Amour au temps de la guerre civile), Rodrigue Jean’s first fiction film since Lost Song, presented at the FNC in 2008; and the documentary The Price We Pay by Harold Crooks (Surviving Progress), a thorough examination of offshore investment, tax shelters and the push to lower corporate income taxes, which exacerbate income inequalities at levels not seen since the Great Depression. The Festival will also present Gurov & Anna (Gurov et Anna) by Rafaël Ouellet (Camion), in which a student played by Sophie Desmarais embarks on a toxic love affair with her teacher.
The lineup will also feature a series of world premieres of Quebec and Canadian productions including: Le militaire by Noel Mitrani (The Kate Logan Affair, Sur la trace d’Igor Rizzi), starring his favourite actor Laurent Lucas, a portrait of loneliness and isolation told through the story of a war vet whose wounds are both physical and psychological; Love Project, an ensemble film by Carole Laure that looks at Generation Y through a group of young adults who put together a collective art project; Antoine et Marie, the new feature by Jimmy Larouche (La Cicatrice), featuring Martine Francke and Sébastien Ricard, about date rape drugs, a topic rarely dealt with on film; and Nouvelles, Nouvelles, by Olivier Godin, the story of a policeman who comes back to life and goes in search of the missing daughter of a tabloid editor. The film stars a host of famous actors including Paul Ahmarani, Rose-Maïté Erkoreka, Étienne Pilon, Luc Proulx, Mani Soleymanlou and Ève Duranceau.
An array of documentaries will also hold their world premieres at the Festival this year: Uyghurs, Prisoners of the Absurd (Ouighours, prisonniers de l'absurde) by Patricio Henriquez (You Don’t Like the Truth: Four Days inside Guantanamo, presented at the FNC in 2010) recounts the nightmare of three innocent men imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay after the 9/11 terrorist attacks; Cantouque à Godin, a film in which Michel Depatie revisits the literary works of Gérald Godin, who left an indelible mark on Quebec’s collective memory through his writing, rooted in the language of the people, and his political involvement as a Parti québécois MNA; Fucké by Simon Gaudreau (King of the l’Est, presented at the FNC in 2010), which follows the daily lives of seven men living in an east-end Montreal apartment block where gut-wrenching poverty, self-destruction and madness are alleviated by tenderness and love; and the documentary essay Transatlantique by Félix Dufour-Laperrière, which portrays the intimate, subjective and often silent journey of a cargo ship crew.
And the Quebec/Canada/Belgium coproduction All yours(Je suis à toi) by David Lambert (best actor for Nahuel Pérez Biscayart at the Karlovy Vary Festival) will have its North-American premiere.
As it does every year, the Festival will showcase short films from Quebec and Canada. There are revelations galore, but also the highly-anticipated Sleeping Giant by Andrew Cividino, which won an award at Locarno; Plage de sable, the latest film by Marie-Ève Juste (Avec Jeff à Moto); Petit Frère by Rémi Saint-Michel, which screened at Cannes this May; and Cutaway by Kazik Radwanski (Tower).
Also in the lineup are some prestigious NFB co-productions, starting with Me and My Moulton by Oscar-winner Torill Kove (The Danish Poet) and Pilots on the Way Home by the brilliant Estonian animated filmmakers Olga and Priit Parn.
The big names in Quebec and Canadian experimental film are also well represented, with new films by Alexandre Larose, Pierre Hébert, Bruce LaBruce, Vincent Grenier, Mike Hoolboom and Phillip Hoffman.
The 43rd edition of the Festival du nouveau cinéma will run from October 8 to 19, 2014, in Montreal.
The full lineup of the 43 rd Festival du nouveau cinema will be announced at the press conference on Tuesday, September 23 at 11 a.m. at the Agora in UQÀM’s Cœur des sciences (175 av. Président-Kennedy, corner of Jeanne-Mance).