Québec Contemporary Cinema
Quebec has always had a privileged relationship with documentary cinema, a tremendous melting pot of its artistic, social and political modernity. Nearly 60 years after the birth of direct cinema, juggling continuity and inventiveness, the local filmmakers are still pursuing a rich dialogue with their society. Here, you will find an anthology of contemporary films made by notorious documentary filmmakers or belonging to a new generation. Through a bright diversity of styles and viewpoints, these filmmakers all share a boundless creativity and an uninhibited freedom that question, challenge, reconcile and help to better understand today’s Quebec and the rest of the world
Visual identity created by Moïa Jobin-Paré
The THROUGH OUR LENS page lists all the Quebec films available on Tënk. It allows you to dive into an exploration of Quebec documentary cinema and discover an anthology of films made by both renowned and emerging documentary filmmakers. Through a dazzling diversity of forms and perspectives, these filmmakers have in common an overflowing creativity and an uninhibited freedom that questions, confronts, reconciles and helps us better understand Quebec and the world.
To perform a more detailed search on Quebec films, use our search engine !
Also discover fascinating interviews with local filmmakers in our Fragments section :
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Les voitures d’eau
Duration: 1h51
Subscription access
Pierre Perrault's third feature film on Île aux Coudres, Les Voitures d'eau tackles the problem of the builders and navigators of wooden schooners, in an age of iron ships, international competition and monopolies. Men of the sea, as skilful in deed as in word, the captains of the river's last schooners are experiencing the end of an artisanal era in which their sons can no longer find a place....
Le règne du jour
Duration: 1h58
Subscription access
Four years after filming _Pour la suite du monde_, Pierre Perrault invites Alexis Tremblay, the renowned storyteller, and his wife Marie, central figures in the first film, to embark on a pilgrimage to France tracing the path of their ancestors.
Pour la suite du monde
Duration: 3h32
Subscription access
In this masterpiece of Quebec cinéma vérité, the inhabitants of Île aux Coudres set out to revive an ancient beluga fishing tradition that had disappeared many years ago. Through the preparations and intergenerational exchanges, the film authentically captures the daily lives, language, beliefs, and stories of the islanders. More than just an ethnographic documentary, _Pour la suite du monde_ e...
Cherry
Duration: 46 minutes
Subscription access
A portrait of the artist Marie-Lise Chouinard, a radiant woman full of contagious vitality who, in her early thirties, received a grim diagnosis. _Cherry_ is a vibrant testament to her resilience, the power of friendship, and the unwavering strength of hope.
Some of My Friends
Duration: 3h52
Subscription access
Seven portraits of people who present themselves at work and in daily life. Seven ways of being present to the world. People who are exceptional because they are like everyone else.
Mon ami Michel
Duration: 1h37
Subscription access
At the age of 68, filmmaker Michel Moreau, who dedicated most of his work to the disabled and marginalized, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. To document and share his experience, he asked his filmmaker friend, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, to record the progression of his illness. Lefebvre agreed and filmed him over four years, working alone with a small Hi-8 camera.
Snowbirds
Duration: 1h36
Subscription access
_Snowbirds_ is a mid-length documentary that reaches out to golden age Canadians living in Florida during the winter season. This is the growing trend of an entire generation migrating to the tropics, seeking a leisure society that can entertain them. With tenderness and humor, this sociological documentary goes to the heart of their daily lives by painting a human portrait of this typically Ca...
Night Falls
Subscription access
A historian with the gift of clairvoyance roams the streets of the old City of Lights. In the falls of Shawinigan, he finds a meditation on human history and its loss of meaning.
NDDJ (Notre-Dame-du-Jambon)
Subscription access
Karan and Rohan, two biracial brothers raised in an alternative, unique, and marginal environment, creatively find ways to pass the time. Like many kids, a trip to buy candy often feels like the perfect escape from boredom. This short film is an ode to the power of reality and fiction, the love between two brothers, and the beauty of the Quebec countryside.
The Rebelious One
Half-fiction and half-documentary, _The Rebelious One_ is both a personal interpretation and a poetical rendition of Marie-Claire Blais' work that follows the Quebec writer's literary journey through eleven of her novels. Like a continuous thread leading us through the discovery of her writings, the voice, the vision and the keen consciousness of Blais recall the social events and the human dra...
No Story Here
Subscription access
_No Story Here_, the first film by Jeannine Gagné, co-directed with Michel Lamothe, offers a striking portrait of working-class Montréal in the 1970s. Created without a script and using just 600 feet of film, this student short freely blends images and sounds, the latter serving as echoes of the popular psyche, already foreshadowing _City Dawn_.
The Rebelious One
Subscription access
Half-fiction and half-documentary, _The Rebelious One_ is both a personal interpretation and a poetical rendition of Marie-Claire Blais' work that follows the Quebec writer's literary journey through eleven of her novels. Like a continuous thread leading us through the discovery of her writings, the voice, the vision and the keen consciousness of Blais recall the social events and the human dra...
Belle River
2019\. Spring flooding in Mississippi hits record highs. In Louisiana, the residents of Pierre Part are preparing for the worst. Barring an unexpected turn of events, local authorities will soon be forced to open the floodgates of the Morganza Spillway, in order to save the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge from further uncontrolled flooding. Faith and resilience are the two best weapons th...
These Streets Will Never Look the Same
These Streets Will Never Look the Same
Duration: 3h12Subscription access
A car slowly navigates the winding streets and disparate airwaves of the United States of America to uncover the scars of capitalism in natural landscapes, urban environments, people, and wildlife. An intricately built meditative audio-visual experience.
Somehow Continue
Subscription access
Shot on 16mm film, this piece creatively portrays the making of _Creation Destruction_, a multidisciplinary outdoor performance by choreographer Dana Gingras set to music by the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. With a keen eye for detail, Karl Lemieux captures the rehearsals and offers a glimpse into the neighborhood hosting the event.
The Seven Last Words
_The Seven Last Words_ sounds out experiential states and rituals particular to humanity, based on the seven themes expressed in a musical composition: forgiveness, salvation, relationship, abandonment, distress, triumph, and reunion. Seven award-winning Canadian filmmakers of diverse origins and art practices explore a wealth of human experience and feeling, based on the seven phrases at the o...
Pitié pour les étranges
A documentary without dialogue shot in part at la Maison du pêcheur, in Percé, featuring future members of the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec). This short film, recently rediscovered by filmmaker Félix Rose, has hardly ever been broadcast.
Gino Bouleau
At 42, Gino left the city and retired, settling in an isolated cabin where he lives simply and fully.
I Might Be Dead by Tomorrow
Subscription access
Patients arrive in the consultation room every day, broken, sick and scarred by life. In front of them sits a committed person who tries, without false hope, to repair bodies and psyches. At night, when the clinic doors are closed, the street outreach workers take to the streets to extend their support to all those unfortunate women who have chosen the streets as their home.
Les voitures d’eau
Duration: 1h51
Subscription access
Pierre Perrault's third feature film on Île aux Coudres, Les Voitures d'eau tackles the problem of the builders and navigators of wooden schooners, in an age of iron ships, international competition and monopolies. Men of the sea, as skilful in deed as in word, the captains of the river's last schooners are experiencing the end of an artisanal era in which their sons can no longer find a place....
Le règne du jour
Duration: 1h58
Subscription access
Four years after filming _Pour la suite du monde_, Pierre Perrault invites Alexis Tremblay, the renowned storyteller, and his wife Marie, central figures in the first film, to embark on a pilgrimage to France tracing the path of their ancestors.
Pour la suite du monde
Duration: 3h32
Subscription access
In this masterpiece of Quebec cinéma vérité, the inhabitants of Île aux Coudres set out to revive an ancient beluga fishing tradition that had disappeared many years ago. Through the preparations and intergenerational exchanges, the film authentically captures the daily lives, language, beliefs, and stories of the islanders. More than just an ethnographic documentary, _Pour la suite du monde_ e...
Cherry
Duration: 46 minutes
Subscription access
A portrait of the artist Marie-Lise Chouinard, a radiant woman full of contagious vitality who, in her early thirties, received a grim diagnosis. _Cherry_ is a vibrant testament to her resilience, the power of friendship, and the unwavering strength of hope.
Some of My Friends
Duration: 3h52
Subscription access
Seven portraits of people who present themselves at work and in daily life. Seven ways of being present to the world. People who are exceptional because they are like everyone else.
Mon ami Michel
Duration: 1h37
Subscription access
At the age of 68, filmmaker Michel Moreau, who dedicated most of his work to the disabled and marginalized, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. To document and share his experience, he asked his filmmaker friend, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, to record the progression of his illness. Lefebvre agreed and filmed him over four years, working alone with a small Hi-8 camera.
Snowbirds
Duration: 1h36
Subscription access
_Snowbirds_ is a mid-length documentary that reaches out to golden age Canadians living in Florida during the winter season. This is the growing trend of an entire generation migrating to the tropics, seeking a leisure society that can entertain them. With tenderness and humor, this sociological documentary goes to the heart of their daily lives by painting a human portrait of this typically Ca...
Night Falls
Subscription access
A historian with the gift of clairvoyance roams the streets of the old City of Lights. In the falls of Shawinigan, he finds a meditation on human history and its loss of meaning.
NDDJ (Notre-Dame-du-Jambon)
Subscription access
Karan and Rohan, two biracial brothers raised in an alternative, unique, and marginal environment, creatively find ways to pass the time. Like many kids, a trip to buy candy often feels like the perfect escape from boredom. This short film is an ode to the power of reality and fiction, the love between two brothers, and the beauty of the Quebec countryside.
The Rebelious One
Half-fiction and half-documentary, _The Rebelious One_ is both a personal interpretation and a poetical rendition of Marie-Claire Blais' work that follows the Quebec writer's literary journey through eleven of her novels. Like a continuous thread leading us through the discovery of her writings, the voice, the vision and the keen consciousness of Blais recall the social events and the human dra...
No Story Here
Subscription access
_No Story Here_, the first film by Jeannine Gagné, co-directed with Michel Lamothe, offers a striking portrait of working-class Montréal in the 1970s. Created without a script and using just 600 feet of film, this student short freely blends images and sounds, the latter serving as echoes of the popular psyche, already foreshadowing _City Dawn_.
The Rebelious One
Subscription access
Half-fiction and half-documentary, _The Rebelious One_ is both a personal interpretation and a poetical rendition of Marie-Claire Blais' work that follows the Quebec writer's literary journey through eleven of her novels. Like a continuous thread leading us through the discovery of her writings, the voice, the vision and the keen consciousness of Blais recall the social events and the human dra...
Belle River
2019\. Spring flooding in Mississippi hits record highs. In Louisiana, the residents of Pierre Part are preparing for the worst. Barring an unexpected turn of events, local authorities will soon be forced to open the floodgates of the Morganza Spillway, in order to save the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge from further uncontrolled flooding. Faith and resilience are the two best weapons th...
These Streets Will Never Look the Same
These Streets Will Never Look the Same
Duration: 3h12Subscription access
A car slowly navigates the winding streets and disparate airwaves of the United States of America to uncover the scars of capitalism in natural landscapes, urban environments, people, and wildlife. An intricately built meditative audio-visual experience.
Somehow Continue
Subscription access
Shot on 16mm film, this piece creatively portrays the making of _Creation Destruction_, a multidisciplinary outdoor performance by choreographer Dana Gingras set to music by the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. With a keen eye for detail, Karl Lemieux captures the rehearsals and offers a glimpse into the neighborhood hosting the event.
The Seven Last Words
_The Seven Last Words_ sounds out experiential states and rituals particular to humanity, based on the seven themes expressed in a musical composition: forgiveness, salvation, relationship, abandonment, distress, triumph, and reunion. Seven award-winning Canadian filmmakers of diverse origins and art practices explore a wealth of human experience and feeling, based on the seven phrases at the o...
Pitié pour les étranges
A documentary without dialogue shot in part at la Maison du pêcheur, in Percé, featuring future members of the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec). This short film, recently rediscovered by filmmaker Félix Rose, has hardly ever been broadcast.
Gino Bouleau
At 42, Gino left the city and retired, settling in an isolated cabin where he lives simply and fully.
I Might Be Dead by Tomorrow
Subscription access
Patients arrive in the consultation room every day, broken, sick and scarred by life. In front of them sits a committed person who tries, without false hope, to repair bodies and psyches. At night, when the clinic doors are closed, the street outreach workers take to the streets to extend their support to all those unfortunate women who have chosen the streets as their home.
