The Old Country Where Rimbaud Died (Indie Focus 2019)

The low-profile Jean Pierre Lefebvre has little to say to the English-speaking Canadians yet he has strong messages for his fellow Quebecois. In the second film of his “Abel Saga,” the 40-year-old Abel travels to his ancestor’s country—France—in hopes to find his roots. With his noticeable accent, he can’t help but realise that he is a stranger in a foreign land. His encounters with a street painter, a taxi driver and a flower girl have dispelled any idealistic notions he previously held for the country. Then he visits his friend Jeanne, a lonely single mother. When Jeanne’s mother commits suicide, he follows Jeanie back to her hometown, which is the birthplace of poet Rimbaud. The scenery once painted by Paul Cézanne feels so close yet so far. The unspeakable void of his ill-fated search for a “home” illustrates the sense of insecurity for post-October Crisis Quebec. The clear-minded Lefebvre laments the so-called independent spirit is possibly just another way to indulge in one’s own colonial fantasy.

Jean Pierre Lefebvre

In French with English subtitles

Drama

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Good Riddance (Indie Focus 2019)

2nd August 2019 (Fri) 7:30pm

114 mins IIB

As the liberals assume power, Quebec is gradually ridding of its conservative mindset - without society in general getting ready for it. While the ailments of liberalism are commonplace, one may doubt if the riddance of conservatism is really that good. Also filmed by auteur Michel Brault, this tale chronicles the lives of the members of an impoverished small-town family – the sensitive and precocious thirteen-year-old Manon, her mother Michelle and her intellectually disabled uncle Ti-Guy. Manon plays hooky from school, rejects the old cop Maurice who courts her mother, despises status, refuses the system and refuses to be one of those ignored or pitied by it; unbeknownst to her, she replaces the absent father-figure in her life with her own volatile and defiant disposition. As excessive drinker Ti-Guy quietly covets his family's wealthy female neighbour, Manon takes up the role of the man in the family as she plays a part in letting things happen for her uncle – for a night and that night only, and severs the relations between her mother and her mother’s suitor. Knowing better about the harsh realities of life then the grown-ups around her, when Manon can finally sleep with her mother and have her love, she decides to take control and build a world of her own as she listens to the clock ticking, though life ahead may by ever more daunting.Restored version in 2013 will be presented in this screening.

Orderers (Indie Focus 2019)

4th August 2019 (Sun) 2:30pm

107 mins IIA

October (Indie Focus 2019)

4th August 2019 (Sun) 5:00pm

98 mins IIB

Sovereigntist director Pierre Falardeau’s controversial film focuses on the Chénier Cell of Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). None of the cell’s four members are portrayed as natural born criminals by Quebec’s most subversive filmmaker. Their sovereignty movement leads them to kidnap Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. The situation escalates rapidly within a week as the Canadian government enforces War Measures Act (see Orderers). Hence the cell members take a leap from civil disobedience to the fringes of political criminality. Ironically, three of them furiously try to save a bloodied Laporte. Falardeau is not interested in retelling the whole truth from all possible perspectives. His lens tightly follows the four cell members and their captive, as they listen to the radio in hopes of a negotiation outcome. Yet together they fall into a pit of helplessness and hopelessness. Since there was strong opposition against the film’s political position, investors had backed away in the process that delayed the film 10 years before its release. Still, Falardeau’s completed a great film with a strong sense of responsibility for the murderous crime.

Polytechnique (Indie Focus 2019)

4th August 2019 (Sun) 8:00pm

82mins IIB

Valérie is an engineering student who is doubted by her interviewer because a woman is supposedly going to end up being married with children. During class, a gunman barges in and orders all the men to leave. Fellow student Jean-François fails to stay behind as his attempt to rescue the victims goes nowhere. Polytechnique is based on the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, in which 14 female engineering students were killed by a misogynist gunman. Director Denis Villeneuve made this independent film with strong Quebecois roots before establishing himself as an acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker. His debut feature offers a piece of the puzzle that tells the story of a somber Quebecois society in the 1990s. Since the film was released only 20 years after the real-life tragedy, the director deliberately omitted the killer’s name and the social commentary in the aftermath. The use of black-and-white cinematography creates a certain distance from the specific event, allowing viewers to relate it to the numerous mass shootings in recent years.