2011 Focus Québec: Retour en Anarrière

It’s that time again. Current short film productions from the French-speaking province of Quebec in Canada are gracing the silver screens in Dresden. Together with the SODEC, Quebec’s film and cultural fund, we are presenting six short fiction and animation films set around one theme: They hazard a look from various perspectives and with differing artistic means at the past. At times painful and nightmarish like in “Poudre“ or “Princesse“, at other times melancholy and with a smile like in “Strips“ or “Opasatica“. Old film shoots take on a new life in them and a young woman is reminded of a former love affair. It is eerie, surprising and unintentionally funny when two roommates discover in “Catherine“ that at one time they both shared the same girlfriend or when Anne Émond seems to mercilessly expose her female protagonist to the camera in “Sophie Lavoie“ and lets her talk about her sex life.

The Films

POUDRE (POWDER), Ky Nam Le Duc (Fiction, Canada 2010)

Two friends spend a summer day together in the suburbs of Montreal. As the evening comes, they go to the fireworks hoping to be entertained but the event ends up igniting memories of a different nature.

STRIPS, Félix Dufour-Laperrière (Animation, Canada 2010)

Strips. Masculine noun, shortened form of striptease. From "strip", to remove, to take away, and "tease", to entice, to tempt. And then all this in plural.

CATHERINE, Kun Chang (Fiction, Canada 2010)

After a party, a gay and a straight guy find out that they share a common past.

SOPHIE LAVOIE, Anne Emond (Fiction, Canada 2009)

Sophie Lavoie has an appointment. Anxiety starts.

PRINCESSE (PRINCESS), Frédérick Tremblay (Animation, Canada 2010)

A man brings a second woman into his home. A dark tale about desire and rejection.

OPASATICA, Éric Morin (Fiction, Canada 2010)

In the north part of Quebec a young Spanish woman lives a short but intense love affair. Intimacy in wide open space.