Several films on Jean Paul Riopelle or inspired by Riopelle have been programmed at FIFA to mark his centenary, including this feature film by Jean-Luc Dupuis, which takes a particular interest in the geese painted by the Quebec artist. The documentary filmmaker talks with relatives of Riopelle, including his daughter Yseult, his last companion Huguette Vachon and the artist Marc Séguin. You can also see Riopelle en courts (set of five short films made by INIS graduates), and Riopelle was non-binary, an experimental short by Aimé Majeau Beauchamp.
Documentary filmmaker Oleksiy Radynski is interested in the career of Ukrainian musician and architect Florian Yuriev, who died a few months before the film’s release (in September 2021, at the age of 92). Yuriev was fighting with other architects by his side to preserve a concert hall he had built against a businessman who wanted to raze the building to build a shopping mall. FIFA, which always has a good section on films by architects, is also interested in the American architect Christopher Charles Benninger (with Benninger, directed by Étienne Desrosiers), as well as those who built the Alhambra, in Granada (The Builders of the Alhambra).
French actor and director Mathieu Amalric immerses us here in the world of Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan (who is also his partner). The documentary focuses on her long preparation to master a difficult piece written especially for her by New York composer John Zorn. Mathieu Amalric had made a first documentary on John Zorn (2010-2017) – released in 2010 – as well as a film on his lover, Barbara Hannigan, in 2017, Music is Music.
Filmmaker Sarah El Younsi and investigative journalist and director Mandakini Gahlot portray Zohra, Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra. It was filmed for the first time in 2017 and the very existence of the musical ensemble already appeared fragile, but with the withdrawal of American troops and the return to power of the Taliban, it is now downright threatened. Some members of the group went into hiding, others fled the country. What can we do today to preserve this orchestra? This is the question that the two documentarians are trying to answer.
New York filmmaker Annie Berman explores the phenomenon of fandom here. “How far would we go for a photograph?” she wonders, exploring the legacy of three cultural icons: Elvis Presley, Pope John Paul II and Diana, Princess of Wales. Three larger-than-life personalities whose images are engraved on countless objects. In the same session, we can also see the film Dear Michael, by Spanish filmmaker Joan Bover Raurell, in which director Marcos Cabota pays tribute to Michael Jackson, telling him everything he would have liked to say to him before he died. die.
In this “open” category, Cirque du Soleil invites us to the heart of its show O, presented for 25 years at the Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas – in a staging by the late Franco Dragone. If we trust the other Cirque films, we can expect close-ups of the artists and their (breathtaking) acts. Cirque also plans to unveil an excerpt from its new marquee show Echo, which will be inaugurated this spring in Montreal. Another film, Cirque Raw, brings together a series of short films made by circus artists. And Life is a Circus takes us on a journey to Cirque tour locations.
The trailer takes us back to 1983, with the release of Sweet Dreams, which propelled the group Eurythmics, led by the duo formed by Annie Lennox and David Stewart, to the top of the pop music charts. French director Lucie Cariès, who has directed documentaries on Louis de Funès, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Lino Ventura, is interested in the career of this unique English artist, who later led a successful solo career, a “complex and tormented” became over the years a citizen involved in several feminist and environmental causes.
