Québec Film Series 2010: Duke University

Courtesy Canadian Studies at Duke Univ.

Sponsored by the Duke Center for Canadian Studies and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image 

Monday, March 22 Griffith (7pm) | Quebec Film Festival Elle veut le chaos (All That She Wants)(Denis Côté, 2008, 105 min, Canada, in French w/ English subtitles, Black & White, 35mm)
In a little village in rural Quebec, Coralie lives alone with her father, following the sudden disappearance of her psychologically unstable mother. Tormented, vulnerable, fragile, solemn, the young woman wanders through the countryside where time seems to have stood still. She seeks isolation in order to think, and so rarely speaks. Her father, likewise haunted by his wife's absence, cannot help her. Poverty, the violence of a world run by men and the absence of a maternal figure, make life unbearably painful for young Coralie, who is always looking for solutions and a new start. Meticulously framed compositions, slow panning shots, contrasts in light, and the use of monochrome all highlight the villagers as much as nature itself in Denis Côtés latest film.
Winner of the Silver Leopard, for Best Directing, at the 2008 Locarno International Film Festival!
Sponsored by the Center for Canadian Studies and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image.

Wednesday, March 24 Griffith (7pm) | Quebec Film Festival
Derrière moi (Behind Me) - w/ director Raphaël Ouellet in person!
(Raphaël Ouellet, 2008, 87 min, Canada, in French w/ English subtitles, Color, 35mm)
Betty, a woman with a mysterious past, arrives in a small Quebec town on vacation. Bored, she ends up striking up a friendship with lonely fourteen-year-old Lea, a young girl who works part-time at the hotel where Betty is staying. Gradually, Betty introduces Lea to the pleasures of overindulgence, dragging her to parties with slightly older and more experienced kids where booze and other intoxicants are plentiful. As the two women grow closer, it soon appears that things are moving too quickly for Lea. Before long, the girls teeter on the brink of self-destruction, struggling with emotions and experiences well beyond their scope of experience.
-- Q&A to follow with Raphaël Ouellet!

About the director: Raphaël Ouellet has filmed more than 150 concerts, 10 videoclips, many television projects and 12 short films. In 2004, he edited Denis Côté's Les États nordiques. Continuing with Côté, he was the director of photography and co-producer, in 2006, of Nos vies privées. That summer, he made his first feature film, Le cèdre penché - a "self-underfinanced" film which won the Popular Choice Award at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal. Derrière moi is his second feature film. Along with Stéphane Lafleur, Denis Côté and other young Quebecois filmmakers, Raphaël Ouellet is contributing to an intriguing, experimental new voice in Quebecois cinema. His films are small, low-budget affairs that use these limitations so much to their advantage that they become assets.
Winner of the audience award at the 2009 Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois festival!
Sponsored by the Center for Canadian Studies and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image.

Monday, March 29 Griffith (7pm) | Quebec Film Festival
À l'ouest de Pluton (West of Pluto)
(Henry Bernadet and Myriam Vereault, 2008, 90 min, Canada, in French w/ English subtitles, Color, DVD)
With a cast of 15- and 16-year-olds, À l'ouest de Pluton follows the lives of ten suburban teens over a 24- hour period. This ensemble film, combining humor and drama, reveals their concerns and their ways of seeing the world. With gripping realism, the film cuts to the heart of adolescence -- the intense, fascinating time of life when people struggle to relate with others and try to make sense of the absurdity of daily life. The language, tone and attitude of the young people, who are experiencing everything for the first time, is beautifully captured in occasionally very stylized or very coarsely shot scenes.
Featured at film festivals in Leeds, Rotterdam, Zurich, Turin, Sao Paulo, Seattle, and Los Angeles!
Sponsored by the Center for Canadian Studies and the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image.