Feature

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.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY

84 min, Documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2007

A visually exquisite, meditative immersion into a Uganda ravaged by 20 years of war.

THE SPIRIT OF PLACES

84 min, Documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2006

This documentary follows the photographical journey of Gabor Szilasi in the area of Charlevoix in 1970, 35 years after the facts.

TREE WITH SEVERED BRANCHES

80 min, documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2005

In Moscow, two elderly men who lived under the Soviet regime adapt to their new sociopolitical reality by creating an imaginary world through art.

HE’S THE MAN

89 min, documentary, Quebec, Canada, 2005

Chronicle of an amateur theater company which has been performing the life of Jesus for 31 years.