Michel Brault, l'instinct de vue

Belle famille(fr)

A working class family leaves St-Henri quarter in Montréal to build a new home in the countryside.

Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment(en)

A documentary about direct-cinema from its very beginnings (Nanook of the North) to the fake-direct-cinema of the Blair Witch Project. All the important direct-cinema filmmakers are portrayed and/or interviewed: Leacock, Wiseman, Maysles, Pennebaker, Reisz and others.

Cesar's Bark Canoe(fr)

"This documentary depicts a canoe being built in the traditional manner. Cesar Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek of the Manawan Reserve North of Montréal, uses only birchbark, cedar splints, spruce roots, and gum. With a sure hand he works methodically to fashion a craft unsurpassed in function or beauty of design. Building a canoe solely from the materials that the forest provides may become a lost art, even among the Native Peoples whose traditional craft it is. The film is free of spoken commentary but text appears on the screen in Cree, French, and English." - Anthology Film Archives

Little Burgundy(fr)

"This film is one of the first French Unit productions of the “Société Nouvelle/Challenge for Change” program. When an old area of Montréal is to be demolished to make way for a new low-income housing development, is there anything the residents can do to protect their own interests? The film documents such a situation in the Little Burgundy district of Montréal and shows how the residents organized themselves into a committee that successfully influenced the city’s housing policy." - Anthology Film Archives

La meilleure façon, c'est par accident(fr)

Friday: About Cars(en)

"Montréal under the snow and the cold winter. It is the period of the year when the garage owners strike it rich. The automobile at the service of man? This small opus would rather show the contrary. This is one in a series of eight films titled “Chronicle of Everyday Life,” a project that filmmaker Jacques Leduc took four years to realize, and whose goal was to revisit Direct Cinema at a moment when it was already heavily “contaminated” by mainstream TV." - Anthology Film Archives

Back to the Land(fr)

Feature-length documentary as part of Pierre Perrault's Abitibian Cycle. The filmmaker questions the past and present of Abitibi and draws up, face to face, the promises of colonization in the 1930s and the great disappointment caused by the closing of the land in the 1970s. There are witnesses to the heroic era, including the cultivator Hauris Lalancette, as well as extracts from films by Father Maurice Proulx (1934-1940).

The Things I Cannot Change(en)

"This feature documentary is considered to be the forerunner of the NFB's Challenge for Change Program. The film offers in inside look at 3 weeks in the life of the Bailey family. Trouble with the police, begging for stale bread, and the birth of another child are just some of the issues they face. Through it all, the father tries to explain his family's predicament. Although filmed in Montreal, the film offers an anatomy of poverty as it occurs throughout North America." - NFB

The Oshima Gang(ja)

Quagliarella - The Untold Truth(it)

The story of Fabio Quagliarella's life and his problems with a stalker.

Fairy Shrimp(en)

Hidden deep within the Pony Pasture Rapids Park of Richmond, Virginia there lives a creature whose ancestors span back a half a billion years. This short film explores the life history of an ancient species, Fairy Shrimp, that survive in harsh habitats here and around the world.

Salvar Tenerife(es)

Salvar Tenerife shows, like never before, the overexploitation to which the island of Tenerife is submitted. It receives more than 6 million tourists a year and has a population of 930000 inhabitants. These figures are born from the terrible way in which the island has been managed during the last decades and currently. An infinite and untenable growth which is threatening more than ever the natural spaces and biodiversity from Tenerife, more and more deteriorated each day. This documentary seeks to boost a change towards real sustainable development, so we can have a future in which we live alongside nature and we can keep enjoying Tenerife (and the rest of the Canary Islands) in their wild and natural state.

Ladyfilmine(it)

A documentary by Giulia Vallicelli about the lady fest that took place in Rome in 2009. This documentary showcases the reality of queer and intersectional feminism in Italy through punk and feminist music.

No Time to Fail(en)

Amidst an onslaught of attacks from a sitting President and the deadly threat of a global pandemic, local election administrators work around the clock to secure the vote for their community. Rhode Island’s election teams take center stage in this unprecedented voting adventure.

Cinéastes de notre temps : Sacha Guitry(fr)

Documentary about French playwright and film director Sacha Guitry.

Shadow Chasers(fr)

This feature-length documentary is a portrait of eclipse chasers, people for whom solar eclipses - among nature's more spectacular phenomena – are a veritable obsession. The film follows 4 of them as they travel incredible distances to witness the last total eclipse of the millennium as it sweeps eastward across Europe to India. At various points along the way enthusiasts Alain Cirou in France, Paul Houde in Austria, Olivier Staiger in Germany and Debasis Sarkar in India offer their impressions of the historic event.

La teoría fantástica (o cómo se creó el mito de la evolución)(es)

The Eichmann Trial(en)

In 1961, history was on trial... in a trial that made history. Just 15 years after the end of WWII, the Holocaust had been largely forgotten. That changed with the capture of Adolf Eichmann, a former Nazi officer hiding in Argentina. Through rarely-seen archival footage, The Eichmann Trial documents one of the most shocking trials ever recorded, and the birth of Holocaust awareness and education.

Nachtarbeiter - Von Fledermäusen und anderem Nachtgetier(de)

A cinematic foray into nocturnal nature, where numerous nocturnal animals are in search of prey: From midnight to 4 a.m., the camera observes bats and other nocturnal creatures.

Two Wars(en)

Two Wars is a work of thought, imagination, and narrative divided in two chapters, World War I and World War II. The first chapter is set in Monte Cassino in Central Italy and the second ten kilometres to the south in the village of San Pietro Infine.