Montreal is often called the city of festivals, and when it comes to film festivals, no month is busier than November. On these shorter days and longer nights, why not hunker down in a theatre with a few-hundred like-minded cinephiles?<\/p>\n
Not one, not two but three film fests light up local screens over the next four weeks, offering eye-opening, globe-trotting entertainment for a wide range of movie buffs. Here\u2019s a rundown of what to expect.<\/p>\n
Cinemania, Nov. 4 to 16<\/h3>\n
The 31st edition of this ever-growing festival presents 175 French-language films from around the world, most of them shown with English subtitles. Far from a niche event, Cinemania regularly lands films from Cannes and other big festivals, attracting an impressive number of stars from Europe.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s big coup is acclaimed French actress Juliette Binoche, who will be on-hand to present her directorial debut In-I In Motion, a documentary about her 2008 stage collaboration with British dancer and choreographer Akram Khan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe presence of artists is particularly important to us,\u201d said festival director Guilhem Caillard. We\u2019re proud to welcome 153 international guests this year, and 134 Quebec guests \u2014 nearly 300 total.\u201d<\/p>\n
Founded by Montrealer Maidy Teitelbaum in 1995, Cinemania has grown into one of the city\u2019s premier film events, with red carpets, industry buzz and strong attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re showing films people want to see,\u201d Caillard said. \u201cAnd given that 40 per cent of these films won\u2019t be shown here on other occasions, it\u2019s a unique opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opening the festival on Tuesday was veteran Quebec director L\u00e9a Pool\u2019s On sera heureux, a gay love story between Saad, a paperless Moroccan immigrant, and his Iranian lover Reza, who is threatened with deportation.<\/p>\n
Other highlights include:<\/p>\n
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Jan Kounen\u2019s L\u2019Homme qui r\u00e9tr\u00e9cit<\/strong>, starring Jean Dujardin in the title role, with Quebec\u2019s Marie-Jos\u00e9e Croze;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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\nArnaud Desplechin\u2019s dramatic romance Deux pianos<\/strong>, starring Fran\u00e7ois Civil and Charlotte Rampling; and<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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\nGuillaume Ribot\u2019s Je n\u2019avais que le n\u00e9ant<\/strong>, revisiting Claude Lanzmann\u2019s classic 1985 Holocaust documentary Shoah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
As usual, Cinemania features several Cannes highlights including:<\/p>\n
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Thierry Klifa\u2019s intrigue La Femme la plus riche au monde<\/strong>, starring French icon Isabelle Huppert in a part inspired by the late French heiress Liliane Bettencourt, L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2019s main shareholder, whose photographer house guest is accused of fleecing her of big bucks;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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\nAlain Berliner\u2019s documentary Bardot<\/strong>, in which the legend opens up about her life;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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\nAnna Cazenave Cambet\u2019s lesbian romance Love Me Tender<\/strong>, in which a lawyer leaves her marriage to follow her heart, one of four films at Cinemania starring Quebec\u2019s Monia Chokri;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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\nRebecca Zlotowski\u2019s Vie Priv\u00e9e<\/strong>, a thriller starring Jodie Foster as a psychologist turned detective; and<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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\nThe Dardenne brothers\u2019 Jeunes m\u00e8res<\/strong>, a story of five young mothers that won best screenplay at Cannes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
AT A GLANCE: Cinemania<\/strong> continues until Nov. 16. For tickets and information, visit festivalcinemania.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Charlie Boudreau, left, and Katharine Setzer, who are respectively director and programming director of the 38th Image+Nation Film Festival, celebrating LGBTQ2+ cinema.<\/p>\n
Image+Nation, Nov. 20 to 30<\/h3>\n
Canada\u2019s longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival turns 38, and Charlie Boudreau and Katharine Setzer couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more important than ever to have a queer film festival,\u201d programming director Setzer told The Gazette.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe go around the world and find the best stories of being queer in every place,\u201d said festival director Boudreau. \u201cIt\u2019s a chance to see the evolution of how we speak about ourselves and represent ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boasting 125 films from 38 countries, Image+Nation opens with M\u00e9tis filmmaker Gail Maurice\u2019s romance Blood Lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt touches on intergenerational trauma, the \u201860s Scoop and the pain of adoption,\u201d Setzer said, \u201cwith a nice lesbian love story in the mix and empowering female characters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The film screens as part of the festival\u2019s Indigiqueer Voices spotlight, which includes Bretten Hannam\u2019s ethereal thriller At the Place of Ghosts (Sk+te\u2019kmujue\u2019katik), Corey Payette\u2019s drag musical Starwalker and Courtney Montour\u2019s documentary Rising Through the Fray, about an Indigenous Roller derby team.<\/p>\n
Image+Nation takes the baton from Cinemania, showing Pool\u2019s On sera heureux and hosting a talk between the director and the film\u2019s screenwriter, Quebec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, Nov. 22. And it screens a film shown at the Festival du nouveau cin\u00e9ma<\/a>, Xiaodan He\u2019s Montr\u00e9al, ma belle, starring famed Chinese-American actress Joan Chen (The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks).<\/p>\n
The festival scores a sneak preview of Montrealer Jacob Tierney\u2019s upcoming Crave series Heated Rivalry, a Canada-Russia hockey romance based on the best-selling book series by Rachel Reid.<\/p>\n
Boudreau and Setzer point to Image+Nation\u2019s first Soir\u00e9e \u00e9tudiante, featuring films by Quebec CEGEP and university students at the NFB Space, Nov. 21; and the 25th anniversary of its Queerment Qu\u00e9bec film series.<\/p>\n
Closing the festival is Sophie Hyde\u2019s Jimpa, an intergenerational queer family drama set in Amsterdam, starring Olivia Colman and John Lithgow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud of our programming,\u201d Setzer said. \u201cJesus, look what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
AT A GLANCE: Image+Nation<\/strong> takes place Nov. 20 to 30. For tickets and information, visit image-nation.org.<\/a><\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re an auteur documentary festival,\u201d says Marc Gauthier, director of the Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n
Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montr\u00e9al (RIDM), Nov. 20 to 30<\/h3>\n
Our city\u2019s premier documentary film fest is anything but conventional. RIDM\u2019s 28th edition features 137 films that push the limits of reality-based storytelling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re an auteur documentary festival,\u201d said event director Marc Gauthier. \u201cOn an artistic level, we seek to challenge cinephiles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opening the event is Letters From Wolf Street, Indian filmmaker Arjun Talwar\u2019s whimsical tale of his experience as an immigrant in Warsaw, which premi\u00e8red at the Berlin Film Festival.<\/p>\n
Closing things out is Argentina-born Andr\u00e9s Livov\u2019s Les Blues du bleuet, a community portrait of Quebec\u2019s blueberry mecca, Lac-Saint-Jean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opening and closing films offer a unique vision of what it means to be a stranger,\u201d said Marlene Edoyan, the festival\u2019s co-artistic director alongside Hubert Sabino-Brunette and Ana Alice de Morais.<\/p>\n
Of note this year is a focus on Taiwan, offering a dozen features and shorts, which Gauthier describes as \u201can eclectic bunch of films that show where Taiwanese documentary is at today \u2014 it\u2019s a very interesting and modern place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michelle Stephenson\u2019s True North revisits the 1969 student anti-racism protests at Montreal\u2019s Sir George Williams University (now Concordia).<\/p>\n
Winner of L\u2019Oeil d\u2019Or at Cannes\u2019s Critics\u2019 Week, D\u00e9ni Oumar Pitsaev\u2019s Imago follows the Chechen-born filmmaker as he leaves Belgium and returns to his village to claim land he has inherited, stirring up old feuds and family dramas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very personal film,\u201d Edoyan commented.<\/p>\n
The longest screening at the festival is of Peter Mettler\u2019s six-hour opus While the Green Grass Grows: A Diary in Seven parts, tracking the Swiss-Canadian filmmaker\u2019s philosophical and cinematic exploration of life and the world around him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s extremely intimate,\u201d Edoyan said. \u201cHe\u2019s a masterful filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n
In The Westoxicateds, Montreal filmmaker Gilda Pourjabar and her brother revisit their youth in Iran imbibing American alternative culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks at creativity in times of repression; it\u2019s a fun film,\u201d Edoyan said.<\/p>\n
RIDM, she explained, is all about \u201cintroducing you to filmmakers, ideas and parts of the world you didn\u2019t expect, and seeing things you wouldn\u2019t see at any other festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
AT A GLANCE: RIDM<\/strong> takes place Nov. 20 to 30. For tickets and information, visit ridm.ca<\/a><\/p>\n
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