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Québec Nationalism (17)

  • 24 Hours or More
    24 Hours or More
    Gilles Groulx 1973 1 h 53 min
    This feature film made during an exceptionally feverish period of popular revolt that saw the coming together of Quebec’s 3 main unions (CSN, FTQ, CEQ) is a cinematic tract by socially engaged filmmaker Gilles Groulx. Propped against the backdrop of the 1970 October Crisis, the film is a frontal assault denouncing a “consumer society” viewed as the ultimate embodiment of evil.
  • Action: The October Crisis of 1970
    Action: The October Crisis of 1970
    Robin Spry 1973 1 h 27 min
    This feature-length documentary looks at those desperate days of October 1970 when Montreal awaited the outcome of FLQ terrorist acts. Using news reports and clips from the time, the film reflects upon the October Crisis and reveals the relief, dismay and defiance people felt when the Canadian army stepped in.
  • Between the Solitudes
    Between the Solitudes
    Abbey Jack Neidik 1992 49 min
    In this documentary, journalist Josh Freed takes a personal journey through English-speaking Montréal; its history, its haunts, its characters, and the difficulties and delights experienced in trying to straddle two solitudes. This is a sometimes angry, often funny and always affectionate portrait of a city split along linguistic lines, as seen through the eyes of its English-speaking minority.
  • The Champions, Part 1: Unlikely Warriors
    The Champions, Part 1: Unlikely Warriors
    Donald Brittain 1978 57 min
    In Part 1 of this 3-part documentary series, director Donald Brittain chronicles the early years of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque. From their university days in the 1950s to 1967 when Lévesque left the Liberal Party and Trudeau became the federal Minister of Justice, Brittain attempts to get at the heart of what makes these men so fascinating.
  • Comfort and Indifference
    Comfort and Indifference
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    Denys Arcand 1991 1 h 48 min
    English sub-titled version of a film showing facts and opinions that lead to the Québec referendum on independence in 1980, with the participation of a historical character: Machiavelli.
  • The Champions, Part 2: Trappings of Power
    The Champions, Part 2: Trappings of Power
    Donald Brittain 1978 55 min
    Part 2 of this 3-part documentary series about Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque covers the years between 1967 and 1977, a colourful decade that saw Trudeau win three federal elections, the 1970 October Crisis and the sweeping rise to power of the Parti Québécois.
  • The Champions, Part 3: The Final Battle
    The Champions, Part 3: The Final Battle
    Donald Brittain 1986 1 h 27 min
    The final instalment of this 3-part documentary series about Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque spans the decade between 1976 and 1986. The film reveals the turbulent, behind-the-scenes drama during the Quebec referendum and the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution. In doing so, it also traces both Trudeau's and Lévesque's fall from power.
  • The Cat in the Bag
    The Cat in the Bag
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    Gilles Groulx 1964 1 h 13 min
    Through the coming of age of a twenty-year-old man, this film symbolizes the political coming of age of the people of Québec. In French with English subtitles.

    Soundtrack album, John's Coltrane's Blue World, available from Impulse! / Universal Music Enterprises.
  • The Great Resistance
    The Great Resistance
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    Denys Desjardins 2008 1 h 17 min
    In the 1930s, in the throes of the Great Depression, the government relocated more than 80,000 citizens to found a new settlement in the virgin forests of Quebec's Abitibi region. After enduring backbreaking work to clear the land, however, many left, seeking a better life in the city or as labourers for the large corporations that had come to exploit the North's valuable resources. The Lalancette family, however, have persisted in forging their future on the land from one generation to the next, earning their keep from farming, and defying the constraints of globalization and the mining and forestry companies that control the area. Revisiting the heritage of Quebec filmmakers who documented Abitibi, following in the footsteps of Pierre Perrault, among others, this documentary traces a defining chapter of Quebec history and raises fundamental questions about regional development.
  • A License to Remember: Je me souviens
    A License to Remember: Je me souviens
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    Thierry Le Brun 2002 51 min
    Director Thierry Le Brun sets off across the province of Quebec in his documentary, to learn just what the license plate slogan "Je me souviens" means to Quebecers. Quebec license plates don't sport cutesy tourist slogans like "Canada's Ocean Playground" or "Land of Living Skies." Instead, they draw attention to the past with "Je me souviens" ("I remember"), a motto that cuts to the heart of Quebec history and society.

    Le Brun rides a dog sled, goes ice fishing, visits an emu farm, joins the Carifiesta celebrations and even gets pulled over by the cops. Along the way he meets a cast of characters, both famous and unknown, with wildly differing views on the provincial motto. "Je me souviens" becomes a Rorschach ink blot into which Quebecers peer, each with their own interpretation, showing the concerns of the many communities that make up their land.
  • Québexit
    Québexit
    Joshua Demers 2020 1 h 23 min
    Québexit is a multi-lingual (English, French, Cree) ensemble political comedy: when a transnational pipeline leads to a successful third Québec sovereignty referendum, a small road at the Québec-New Brunswick border becomes a lightning rod of conflict between the new Québec military, the Canadian Armed Forces and two indigenous women who traverse the border frequently.
  • Québec: Duplessis and After ...
    Québec: Duplessis and After ...
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    Denys Arcand 1972 1 h 54 min
    This film establishes a parallel between the 1970 electoral campaign in Québec and the 1936 campaign dominated by Maurice Duplessis. It shows the hope but also the uncertainty that existed in 1970. Had the Quiet Revolution really changed things in Québec? Was it possible that a new leader would emerge on the political scene?
  • The Rise and Fall of English Montreal
    The Rise and Fall of English Montreal
    William Weintraub 1993 50 min
    In the past 20 years, some 300,000 English-speaking people have left Montréal, convinced they had no future in a Québec that had become increasingly French, increasingly nationalistic. In this video we meet some of the people who are moving away and recall the days, in the last century, when there were more English-speaking people than French in Montréal. The video poses a controversial question: Will the city, with its youth leaving in great numbers, become a community of the elderly, unable to renew itself?
  • Referendum - Take 2/Prise deux
    Referendum - Take 2/Prise deux
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    Stéphane Drolet 1996 1 h 16 min
    October, 1995. The most important political event in recent Canadian history, the Quebec vote on sovereignty, is about to unfold. During the tense days leading up to the referendum for independence, 23 filmmakers from the NFB's English and French documentary studios take their cameras into the streets and homes of Quebeckers. Culled from 250 hours of footage, Referendum is an emotional portrait of a profoundly divided society. In a collage of powerful moments, the video recaptures the emotions of that time and measures them against today's political agenda. Implicit is the question: What next?
  • Sophie Wollock's Newspaper
    Sophie Wollock's Newspaper
    Gilles Blais 1979 27 min
    This short documentary profiles Sophie Wollock and the newspaper she founded for the western suburbs of Montreal in l963, The Suburban. A weekly paper distributed free to some 45,000 homes, most of them anglophone, The Suburban became famous for the strongly worded editorials written by Wollock, mainly on the subject of Québec nationalism. The film looks at the paper, then under the guidance of her son, and sums up some of Wollock's more impassioned editorials.
  • A Song for Quebec
    A Song for Quebec
    Dorothy Todd Henaut 1988 55 min
    Produced in 1988, this feature documentary presents a living history of Quebec's last 40 years as seen through the eyes of one couple. Pauline Julien and Gérald Godin, two Quebec artists, share their perspectives on the events that have marked Quebec's evolution. Julien, a singer, and Godin, a poet, express their love and passion for the province (and each other) while providing a unique take on the Quebec nationalist movement.
  • Where the Land Ends
    Where the Land Ends
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    Loïc Darses 2019 1 h 29 min
    Against the backdrop of the camera’s meditative wandering through the places that created Quebec, Where the Land Ends explores and questions the historical narrative, as a group of young people who were not old enough to vote in the 1995 referendum express their views. They seem to have decided, on their own, to create a new “Terre des Hommes” (Man and His World).