Québec Cinéma
Québec Cinéma
Quebec films are little known to the Louisiana public. This class offered over 6 sessions will introduce you to some jewels of contemporary Quebec cinema and their directors. They will give you the tools to better understand this specific culture, its territory and its attachment to its language. Through images and sound you will be immersed in a multifaceted linguistic world, allowing you to strengthen your oral comprehension, and to express yourself in a small group in a convivial way.
In this course, after watching French language films, we will examine their directors and actors, analyze the themes and language, and learn vocabulary and expressions related to a specific film and to cinema in general.
Class meets Monday nights (see dates below) at 5:30 p.m. at the Historic BK House (1113 Chartres Street).
Offered in conjunction with the Nous Foundation.
Dates of class: April 8, April 15, April 22, April 29, May 6, May 13.
Class is for those with a B1 level or above in French.
See below for list of films.
Fee: $110 for the full series.
For more information, please contact Manon Bellet at info@lunionfrancaise.org
Lundi, le 8 avril
Le Carrefour - The Intersection (2021)
This documentary film is co-directed by Daniel Quintanilla and Jessamine Irwin.
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Short at the Camden International Film Festival, the 2021 documentary film, The Intersection (Le Carrefour), co-directed by Daniel Quintanilla and Jessamine Irwin, focuses on past and present Maine immigrant communities who share a common bond: The French language.
Cecile reconnects with the French of her childhood thanks to recently arrived Franco-African immigrants, like Tresor, seeking asylum in Cecile’s hometown of Lewiston, Maine. Cecile’s Franco roots tie her to the thousands of French-Canadians who came before her to power the local mills, and who suffered from decades of discrimination and oppression. As history repeats itself, Cecile and Trésor develop a close friendship that helps Cecile finally find her pride in being Franco-American.
Lundi, le 15 avril
Mon Oncle Antoine (1971), Claude Jutra
Benoit (Jacques Gagnon) is an adolescent in the care of his uncle, Antoine (Jean Duceppe), who runs a general store in a small mining town in Quebec. To make some extra money, Antoine doubles as the town's undertaker. During the Christmas shopping rush, Benoit helps out at the store, learning a lot about himself in the process. When he accompanies his uncle to pick up the body of a local boy who has recently died, he is faced with his own mortality, and realizes that life is fleeting.
Lundi, le 22 avril
Le decline de l’empire américain (1986), Denys Arcand
The Decline of the American Empire (French: Le Déclin de l'empire Américain) is a 1986 Canadian sex comedy-drama film directed by Denys Arcand and starring Rémy Girard, Pierre Curzi and Dorothée Berryman. The film follows a group of intellectual friends from the Université de Montréal history department as they engage in a long dialogue about their sexual affairs, touching on issues of adultery, homosexuality, group sex, BDSM and prostitution. A number of characters associate self-indulgence with societal decline.
Lundi, le 29 avril
La grande séduction (2003), Jean-François Pouillot
A new factory is promised to the residents of the tiny fishing village St. Marie-La-Mauderne, provided they can lure a doctor to take up full-time residency on the island. Inspired, the villagers devise a scheme to make Dr. Christopher Lewis a local.
Lundi, le 6 mai
Monsieur Lazhar (2012), Philippe Falardeau
Monsieur Lazhar is a 2011 Canadian French-language drama film directed by Philippe Falardeau and starring Mohamed Saïd Fellag, Sophie Nélisse and Danielle Proulx. Based on Bashir Lazhar, a one-character play by Évelyne de la Chenelière, it tells the story of an Algerian refugee in Montreal who steps in to teach at an elementary school after the former full-time teacher dies by suicide.
Falardeau opted to film the story for the Canadian company micro_scope, despite the challenges of adapting a play with only one character. De la Cheneliere advised Falardeau and recommended casting Algerian comedian Fellag. It was filmed in Montreal
Lundi, le 13 mai
Laurence Anyways (2012), Xavier Dolan
In the '90s, Laurence tells his girlfriend, Fred, that he wants to become a woman; they confront the prejudices of their friends, ignore the council of their families and brave the phobias of the society they offend.