Documentary

THE LEGACY OF THE OKA TRAPPISTS

52 min, Documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2008

Having been established in their magnificent abbey at Oka, Québec, for over 125 years, the Trappist monks now prepare to leave.

KIYUKTA

40 min, Documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2008

A journey in Nunavut punctuated by captured moments and encounters.

A GARDEN UNDER THE LINES

116 min, documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2008

In the heart of a North American city, a cast of retired Haitian and Italian immigrants tend their gardens, planted on a vast vacant lot soon to be replaced by a highway.

A TENT ON MARS

60 min, Documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2008

Schefferville, a mining town active in the 80s which was since abandonned, is now the new home of the Innu People.

MY FATHER’S STUDIO

72 min, Documentary, Canada, 5.1

In November 2001, Quebec Painter Edmund Alleyn (1931-2004) agreed to be filmed in his Montreal studio by his daughter, filmmaker Jennifer Alleyn. There, something unexpected happened : an authentic encounter, with no beating around the bush, no mask. From a few existential questions –about life, painting, death- thruth emerged. The artist died of cancer in December 2004 before Jennifer could film him again. After inheriting his studio, she found herself in this sacred space, still imbued with the presence and imagination of her father. Her film is an attempt to prolong the dialogue, to find the missing fragments of her father’s life. Edmund Alleyn was an intense and complex man of integrity who left his mark on Canadian art history.

CUBANOS – LIFE AND DEATH OF A REVOLUTION

82 min, Documentary, Canada, 2.0

Cubanos, a completely independent production, liberates itself from television convention to draw an impressionist portrait of the Cuban community. Sincere interviews and sequence shots reveal an identity fragmented by 48 years of dictatorship, a people struggling to leave the 20th century behind. While music may barely camouflage the misery and corruption in Cuba, the sounds of engines and commercial radio can’t mask the cultural gap between the island and the very active community in Miami. The main character, Catuey, a Cuban musician who has been living in Québec for a number of years, brings to his journey and his songs the image of an ideal Cuba hurt by the division in its people and the group-think that prevails in Miami. Confronted with the contradictions among his countrymen and his own demons, Catuey ends his odyssey drained and disappointed not to have found a simple path to reconciliation.