The screening of the restored film D’Est, by Chantal Akerman, and the Quebec film La turlute des ans dures, by Pascal Gélinas and Richard Boutet, the Quebec premiere of Mademoiselle Kenopsia by Denis Côté and the launch of a box set of 12 DVDs by Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin are at the heart of the programming of the 26th Montreal International Documentary Meetings (RIDM).
This program, unveiled Wednesday at the Cinémathèque québécoise, includes 138 films from 47 countries which will be screened from November 15 to 28 in several Montreal theaters.
The presentation of a restored copy of the film D’Est by Chantal Akerman coincides with the 30th anniversary of its world premiere in 1993 at the Locarno Film Festival. In her unique style, the Belgian filmmaker, who died in 2015, is interested in the resumption of life in the former Eastern European countries following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In this 110-minute uncommented documentary, the director takes her camera through the streets, countryside and interiors of several places in Ukraine, Poland, Russia and East Germany.
A performance by cellist and composer Sonia Wieder-Atherton, a former companion of Ms. Akerman, will also take place on November 17 at the Museum Cinema.
Another special presentation, that of the feature film La turlute des ans dures, a 1983 film in which directors Richard Boutet and Pascal Gélinas highlight Quebec songs popular at the time of the Great Depression.
The restoration of this film is a collaboration between the NFB and the Cinémathèque québécoise as part of the Quebec Digital Cultural Plan.
“This documentary succeeds in a light tone in speaking about a difficult period,” wrote our late colleague Luc Perreault in his review published on March 26, 1983.
Montreal filmmaker Denis Côté will present Mademoiselle Kenopsia as its Quebec premiere after its launch at Locarno last summer. “At the confluence of fiction, essay and experimental, this film opens a multiple reflection on the gaze,” indicates the festival program.
In conversation with filmmaker Nadine Gomez, Mr. Côté will give a master class on his unique vision of cinema.
Finally, the launch of the box set by filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin will be accompanied by the screening of two of her early works, Christmas at Moose Factory (1971) and Amisk (1977).
Remember that the opening film will be Bye Bye Tiberias in which director Lina Soualem gives the floor to her mother, actress Hiam Abbass, who has appeared in numerous works in cinema and television, including the series Succession and the film Blade Runner 2049, by Denis Villeneuve.
