Cinemania 2015 Awards

CINEMANIA

November  5 - 15, 2015

CINEMANIA’s 21st edition of French films with English subtitles  ended on Sunday evening, November 15, 2015.

This year’s annual Montreal's film festival enjoyed a record 27% increase in attendance. It greatly surpassed all the expectations.

GRAND PRIX MEL HOPPENHEIM

The main CINEMANIA prize that has been awarded since 1998:

THE SENSE OF WONDER - LE GOUT DES MERVEILLES

Eric Besnard’s LE GOUT DES MERVEILLES carried off the Grand Prix Mel Hoppenheim. This very moving film follows the life of a young widow, Louise, coping as a single mother raising two children on a pear-farm in France’s Drome region. One evening on her way back from market she collides with a young man on a country road – he suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, a somewhat milder form of autism. His intelligence and his innate sense of curiosity about the wonders of the world forever change Louise’s life and that of her children. It’s a wonderful film, a very different romantic comedy featuring incredible chemistry between the two leads, Virginie Efira and Benjamin Lavernhe.

TFO Prix du Public for Best First Feature Film

JOURNEY THROUGH CHINA - VOYAGE EN CHINE

  

There were seven films eligible to compete for the TFO Prix du Public, and Zoltan Mayer’s VOYAGE EN CHINE was chosen by CINEMANIA’s audience as the favourite. The film, starring the talented Belgian actress Yolande Moreau, enjoyed it’s North American premiere at the Festival. Moreau movingly portrays a mother who travels to China to recuperate her son’s body, the result of a fatal motorcycle accident. She’s suddenly plunged into a foreign culture that’s completely strange to her and she gradually realizes that her sad voyage is becoming a journey of self-discovery, a reinvigoration of her own life despite her grieving.

A MOST SUCCESSFUL 21st EDITION!

Selecting the best films from such prestigious festivals as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Angouleme and Toronto, CINEMANIA 2015 programmed 44 films of which 40 were premieres, in addition to 3 retrospective films and 3 documentaries.

CINEMANIA’s stage at the Imperial Cinema was graced this year by guest of honour, actress Francoise Fabian; producer and actress, Julie Gayet; director Phillipe Le Guay; actors Antonythasan Jesuthasan, Ariane Ascaride, and Syrus Shahidi; filmmakers Guillaume and Stephane Malandrin; director and actor Mathieu Busson; and producers Dominique Besnehard and Tarek Lakhdar-Hamina.  All presented their films and gave generously of their time in engaging with CINEMANIA’s audiences.

The 22nd edition of CINEMANIA will take place from Thursday, November 3rd to November 13th, 2016.

For more information about the festival, viisit the CINEMANIA website.

RIDM 2015: Manoir

MANOR  - MANOIR
By MARTIN FOURNIER and PIER-LUC LATULIPPE

WORLD PREMIERE  -  REPORT ON QUEBEC 

2015 / Colour/ Canada - Quebec / 83 min. / French with English subtitles

The film was given the MAGNUS ISACSSON AWARD's  Special Mention at RIDM's Awards Ceremony. 

This films throws a light on some social issues mentally ill and disadvantaged people have to face in our modern society in Quebec. It posses the questions whether they receive an appropriate care and are provided with pleasant and stimulating, professionally ran environments, in order for them to feel as worthy and even active members of the community, as they can still play a valuable role despite there health and emotional difficulties. Just participating in this films proves that point. By telling us about themselves helps us to connect to our own humanity, and also to our caring for others.

In this film you meet some interesting, unusual people. You see how they care about each other, how they help each other in a rather difficult situation of being dislodged from what was their home for a long time. Moving is a very stressful event for anybody. But if you are ill and are not sure where you are going to go, where you will move, that must be even so much more stressful.

Watch the film and see how you feel about the people, your reactions to their situation. Look closer at those feelings as what they might tell you about yourself. 

Film's Official Synopsis

 “Whether mentally ill or caught in the grip of addiction, Michel, Paul, Johnny, Philippe, Nathalie and Gilles get by without any real care in Manoir Gaulin, a manor in name only. Looking like an abandoned motel, the private facility near downtown Saint-Hyacinthe, is a place steeped in misery. When a businessman announced plans to buy it, Martin Fournier (a member of the Amerika Orkestra collective, which made the stunning Daytona) and Pier-Luc Latulippe went inside to chronicle the difficult transition, resulting in a luminous, brilliantly directed film of great beauty and sadness, attentive to and respectful of its subjects’ distress.”

Presented in collaboration with the CSN and Post-Moderne

COUNTRY : QUEBEC
YEAR : 2015
LANGUAGE : FRENCH
SUBTITLES : ENGLISH
RUNTIME : 83 MIN
PRODUCTION : PATRICIA BERGERON, MARTIN FOURNIER, PIER-LUC LATULIPPE
CINEMATOGRAPHY : OLIVIER TÉTRAULT
EDITING : JF LORD
SOUND : MARTIN ALLARD

CONTACT
PIER-LUC LATULIPPE
PL.LATULIP@GMAIL.COM

 

MARTIN FOURNIER

FILMOGRAPHY
DAYTONA (2004)

 

PIER-LUC LATULIPPE

FILMOGRAPHY
PREMIER LONG MÉTRAGE - FIRST FEATURE

For more information about the RIDM documentary film festival visit the RIDM website.

RIDM 2015: Je suis le peuple

JE SUIS LE PEUPLE  - I AM THE PEOPLE

by ANNA ROUSSILLON

QUEBEC PREMIERE -INTERNATIONAL FEATURE COMPETITION

2014 / Colour / France / 111 min. / Arabic with French and English subtitles

This film has won the BEST EDITING IN AN INTERNATIONAL FEATURE Award which was given to the film's editors Saskia Berthod and Chantal Piquet. It was recognized that Je suis le peuple by Anna Roussillon, was  “an elegant and seamlessly structured chronicle of a revolution that weaves the local and the national as lived and seen by an unforgettable family in a province far from Tahrir Square.”

The film deals with a Egypt's recent history of about three year duration when Egypt saw in succession three different presidents at the helm of the country. The events at the Tahrir Square that deposited Hosni Mubarak from his presidential post and brought him to jail, began just a day after Anna Roussillon leaves Egypt at the end of the first segment of her film. 

The director befriends an Egyptian family who lives in a village outside of Luxor. The head of the family Farraj, Anna's principal friend, is the focus of her film. You can see him in the very top photo in this article, on the right. He is advanced in age but keeps working in the fields and a bit later establishes an additional wheat milling enterprise. One thing I failed to catch properly was his relationship to two women in the film. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up with the film's images and miss a couple of final words in subtitles. At first I thought the very first woman at the beginning of the film was his wife. But then she states later she is too old to have children, yet at the same time he is surrounded by his very young kids. Then another woman is said to be pregnant with his child. I even though he had two wives, as Muslims can have four wives, and had to contact the production of the film to clarify the relationships to me. I was told that one woman is a Farraj's neighbour, and the other one is his wife to whom he married late in his life.

The film shows that at first people outside of Cairo, the rural population, were disconnected from the events at the Tahrir Square. Those who started the revolution did not seem to represent fully the ordinary people working on the land, they did not coordinate their actions with the rest of the Egypt's population. Those at Tahrir Square were in the beginning mostly young men, and their personal frustrations and concerns did not appear to have been the same as of other population represented by the Farraj's family. Yet little by little, as Farraj reads newspapers and watches news with his children on his new satellite TV, he gets into the emotions of what is going on in Cairo and starts supporting the revolution.

Contrary to Farraj, his neighbour, the older woman, keeps her cool about the events throughout the film. She really gives the impression of being deeply rooted in the earth, as we see her in the very first shot in the film being seated on the ground by a country road. She does not get excited by all the turmoil caused by the deep political and geopolitical games going on in her country. She is an earthy person with a knowledge of what common and immediate life-supporting values are the most important ones.

Although the Farraj's household was followed with a camera during an extended period of time, we do not see them, not even once, having a meal together, which would have revealed much better the dynamics within the family. After all, family's meals represent not only the body nourishment but also a family consolidation ritual. It is important, since a family is a basic building block of a society.  

The film shows that very little had changed in the country for ordinary people regardless of the revolution, changes of presidents, and the general turmoil of all those political events.

A worthy film to see to remind oneself of a great French proverb:

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." (Literally, “The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.”)

Or is it the same thing?

Film's Official Synopsis

“What did the successive Egyptian revolutions mean for villagers living far from the action happening in Cairo? In this first feature, Anna Roussillon, a French citizen raised in Egypt, offers an important counterpoint to the spectacular images captured in Tahrir Square. In January 2011, when tens of thousands of demonstrators took to Cairo’s streets, the director started filming her friend Farraj and his family, peasants in the Luxor Valley. For two years, their television screens allowed them to follow the country’s political upheavals, as it experienced an alternately enthusiastic and painful experiment with democracy. With wit, empathy and a powerful rapport with her subjects, the director makes us feel their hopes and disappointments. A superb lesson in humanity.”

Presented in collaboration with the CSN, the Association du cinéma indépendant pour sa diffusion and the Consulat général de France à Québec.

COUNTRY : FRANCE
YEAR : 2014
LANGUAGE : ARABIC
SUBTITLES : FRENCH, ENGLISH
RUNTIME : 111 MIN
PRODUCTION : KARIM AITOUNA, MALIK MENAÏ, THOMAS MICOULET
CINEMATOGRAPHY : ANNA ROUSSILLON
EDITING : SASKIA BERTHOD, CHANTAL PIQUET
SOUND : JEAN-CHARLES BASTION

CONTACT
(PRODUCTION)
THOMAS MICOULET
HAUTLESMAINS PRODUCTIONS
CONTACT@HAUTLESMAINSPRODUCTIONS.FR

 

ANNA ROUSSILLON

FILMOGRAPHY

PREMIER LONG MÉTRAGE - FIRST FEATURE

Film's Trailer

RIDM 2015 Awards

AWARD WINNERS
18^th Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM)

The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) closed on Sunday November 22, after presenting 143 films and numerous parallel activities and events. The award winners for the 18^th annual RIDM were announced last night, Saturdat November, 21, during the closing ceremony at Concordia University’s Alumni Auditorium (H110).

GRAND PRIZE FOR BEST CANADIAN FEATURE

Presented by TV5, the Grand Prize for Best Canadian Feature is awarded to Jean-François Lesage’s Un amour d’été, the jury particularly appreciated this “ode to coexistence and joie de vivre that freezes time. A subtly political declaration celebrating the happiness that comes from being together; a nocturnal interlude whose deep appeal to the senses is underscored by remarkable imagery.”

BEST NEW TALENT FROM QUEBEC/CANADA

Presented by Post-Moderne, the award for Best New Talent from Quebec/Canada is presented to the director of the best first film in the Canadian Feature competition. The award goes to Geneviève Dulude-De Celles’s Bienvenue à F.L., “A visually assured film, structurally mature, with a point of view that reveals all the charm of the age when anything is still possible.”

The jury also gave a special mention to André-Line Beauparlant’s Pinocchio.

The jurors for the Canadian Feature competition were Eve Duranceau, Francis Kandel and Paolo Moretti.

MAGNUS ISACSSON AWARD

The Magnus Isacsson Award is presented by the ACIC/NFB, ARRQ, Cinema Politica and Doc Québec. Created in 2012 in honour of the beloved Montreal documentary filmmaker Magnus Isacsson, this award is presented to an up-and-coming Canadian director for a work demonstrating social consciousness. This year, the winner is Jean-Sébastien Francoeur and Andrew Marchand-Boddy’s Retour aux sources.

A special mention goes to Manoir directed by Martin Fournier and Pier-Luc Latulippe.

The members of the Magnus Isacsson Award jury were Jocelyne Clarke, Benjamin Hogue (Doc Québec), Sylvie Groulx (ARRQ), Annie Jean (editor) and Svetla Turnin (Cinema Politica).

BEST EDITING IN AN INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

The editing award was presented to Saskia Berthod and Chantal Piquet for their work on Je suis le peuple by Anna Roussillon, “an elegant and seamlessly structured chronicle of a revolution that weaves the local and the national as lived and seen by an unforgettable family in a province far from Tahrir Square.”

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY IN AN INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

The award for cinematography was presented to Diego Romero Suarez-Llanos for his inventive work on The Other Side by Roberto Minervini “for his mastery of an embodied camera and intuitive choreography.”

GRAND PRIZE FOR BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Presented by Bell Media, the Grand Prize for Best International Feature was awarded to Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) directed by Abbas Fahdel, “for a patient, sensitive, and restrained yet expansive film that generously offers an intimate and singular perspective on a family's and a nation’s experience through war and occupation.”

The jury gave a special mention to Daniel Hui’s Snakeskin.

The jurors for the International Feature competition were Sophie Leblond, Kim McCraw, Aily Nash, J.P. Sniadecki and Ivan Trujillo Bolo.

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

Presented by the CBC’s documentary Channel, the winner of this award is chosen by festivalgoers from among all films in the Official Competition and Panorama sections. This year’s winner is Abbas Fahdel’s Homeland (Iraq Year Zero).

BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM

Presented by Super Channel, the award for Best International Short Film went to Guido Hendrikx’s Among us, which “achieves a surprising intimacy through its candid and earnest inquiry into sexuality, distinguishing eros and libido in a provocative way."

The jury gave a special mention to elle pis son char by Loïc Darses.

BEST INTERNATIONAL MEDIUM-LENGTH FILM

Presented by Super Channel, the award for Best International Medium-Length Film was presented to Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas, "for its sustained immersion in a marginalized culture, for its site-specificity and direct encounter with its subjects and for its enigmatic contribution to an historical discourse on race in America."

The jury gave a special mention to Chloé Mahieu and Lila Pinell’s Business Club

The jurors for the international short and medium-length competitions were Sara Archambault, Jay Kuehner and Claudie Lévesque.

STUDENT AWARD

Presented by the CSN and Telefilm Canada, in collaboration with STM, the Student award is given to a documentary selected by the Student Jury from among the films in the Canadian Competition.

This year’s winner is P.S. Jerusalem directed by Danae Elon.

WOMEN INMATES’ AWARD

The Inmates Jury is comprised of five women from the Joliette Institution (Johanne, Krystal, Madeleine, Marie-Josée and Yanie). The award is presented to the jury’s favourite film from a selection of nine entries in the Official Competition and Panorama section. This year they chose Jean-Sébastien Francoeur and Andrew Marchand-Boddy’s Retour aux sources.

The award is presented in collaboration with Téléfilm Canada, the Quebec chapter of the Elizabeth Fry Society and the Entente sur le développement culturel de Montréal. The project is suppored by Quebec’s Ministère de la Culture et des Communications and the Ville de Montréal.

For more information about the RIDM documentary film festival visit the RIDM website.

RIDM 2015: Peggy Guggenheim

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT

by LISA IMMORDINO VREELAND

QUEBEC PREMIERE - ARTIFICE

2015 / Colour, Black & White/ USA / 96 min. / English

When one hears the name Guggenheim, what first comes to mind is the renown New York's art institution Guggenheim Museum, the full name of which is Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. What is much less known is that the first art collector in this very rich extended family was not Solomon, but his rather eccentric (by the standards of those times) niece Peggy Guggenheim.

The film narrates Peggy's biography and, most importantly, it presents an in depth look on how and why she became interested in art and in collecting art. It tells the viewer about her art galleries in Europe, New York, and of her opening later in her life an Art Museum in Venice, Italy.  

Peggy Guggenheim had a very keen eye for the avangard modern art of her time. For instance, she was the one who first promoted Jackson Pollock and commissioned his works. She also knew and associated with all the who-is-who of the emerging new art in the beginning of the twentieth century. She was even married to the surrealist German painter Max Ernst.

The film is a fascinating kaleidoscopic presentation of life and accomplishments of this very unique woman. I highly recommend it especially to all the art and art history lovers.

Film's Official Synopsis

"She discovered Jackson Pollock and married Max Ernst. She exhibited the works of a very young Lucian Freud in her London gallery, and those of Robert de Niro’s mother in her palace in Venice. Her father died on the Titanic, she was photographed by Man Ray, played tennis with Ezra Pound and had a passionate love affair with Samuel Beckett. In the 20th century, she witnessed and assisted with the making of the greatest contemporary artists, while developing an eccentric, endearing personality. Using rare archival images, interviews with experts and recordings of her interviews with biographer Jacqueline B. Weld, filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland lays out the fascinating, stranger- than-fiction life of the most remarkable Peggy Guggenheim."

Presented in collaboration with Planète + and the Festival International du Film sur l’Art.

 COUNTRY : UNITED STATES

YEAR : 2015
LANGUAGE : ENGLISH
RUNTIME : 96 MIN
PRODUCTION : STANLEY BUCHTHAL, DAVID KOH, DAN BRAUN, LISA IMMORDINO VREELAND
CINEMATOGRAPHY : PETER TRILLING
EDITING : BERNADINE COLISH, JED PARKER
SOUND : ERIC MILANO

CONTACT
DAVID KOH
SUBMARINE ENTERTAINMENT
DK@SUBMARINE.COM

LISA IMMORDINO VREELAND

FILMOGRAPHY
DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL (2011)

For more information about the documentary film festival visit the RIDM website.

RIDM 2015: Police Académie

COP CLASS (POLICE ACADÉMIE)

by MÉLISSA BEAUDET

PREMIER LONG MÉTRAGE - FIRST FEATURE - REPORT ON QUEBEC
2015 / Colour / Canada - Quebec / 87 min. / French & English

The film version I watched had no English subtitles.

The film shows how police officers are trained in Quebec, what type of systematic physical endurance they have to undergo to build body fitness and strength, and the type of situation enactments they have to participate in to ensure they could deal with the real life situations. Unfortunately, the film does not elaborate on the future police officers selection process, especially their psychological testing, but only states that 800 people apply to the Police Academy every year, and only 100 are chosen among them with the average academic achievement in the region of about 86%. 

The film reveals to what an extend a lot of police work has social rather than criminal nature. However, it does not address how the future policeman are taught to deal with such purely social issues. Or maybe such aspects of their future work is not fully covered during their training? Some borderline social-criminal cases are addressed but it appears they are approached more from the criminal point of view.

The three people in focus in this film all show a great amount of enthusiasm about their chosen future profession. Yet the film at the end also states that quite a number of policemen experience the feeling of disillusionment. Unfortunately, it does not elaborate in this subject.

If you are interested to know how the future policemen are trained, then this film is for you. But do not expect any real journalistic analysis of the process. 

Film's Official Synopsis

"How are our police officers trained? With commendable objectivity and a keen eye, Mélissa Beaudet tries to demystify the underpinnings of an occupation often decried for its lack of transparency by following three very different cadets during their final year of training. In spite of themselves, the three can’t help but represent common stereotypes – the naïve brute, the daddy’s girl, the sensitive intellectual. The director manages to see beyond clichés to describe the complexity of the issues these future police officers are dealing with. Anything but a manipulative broadside, Police Académie does justice to the daily efforts of cadets and their instructors, who must constantly juggle law enforcement and social work."

Presented in collaboration with Radio-Canada.

COUNTRY : QUEBEC
YEAR : 2015
LANGUAGE : FRENCH
SUBTITLES : FRENCH, ENGLISH
RUNTIME : 87 MIN
PRODUCTION : STÉPHANIE VERRIER
CINEMATOGRAPHY : FRANÇOIS MESSIER-RHEAULT
EDITING : JULES SAULNIER
SOUND : CYRIL BOURSEAUX, BERNARD GARIÉPY STROBL, SYLVAIN BELLEMARE

CONTACT
(PRODUCTION)
STÉPHANIE VERRIER
LES PRODUCTIONS FLOW
INFO@PRODUCTIONSFLOW.CA

MÉLISSA BEAUDET

FILMOGRAPHY
PREMIER LONG MÉTRAGE - FIRST FEATURE

Watch the FILM'S TRAILER on VIMEO.

For more information about the documentary film festival visit the RIDM website.