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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Waiting for Casimir
Subscription access
In the village of Saint-Casimir, a seniors’ residence houses five people. At the heart of this confined space shaped by daily routines, a parallel world unfolds. Hours pass slowly in an endless waiting, punctuated by the presence of a local community TV station that intrudes into their universe through the television screen. Alternating between the sweetness of childhood memories and the presen...
Simon & Marianne
Subscription access
Simon is living with an inoperable brain tumor that casts a shadow over his remaining days. The time for major decisions is approaching. Supported by his partner Marianne, Simon stands at the threshold of two worlds—fragile, lucid, fully present to everything around him. Filmed almost entirely at night and in black and white, the documentary captures their final summer together.
Okurimono
Subscription access
Noriko Oi, a Japanese Canadian who has lived in Montreal for more than 20 years, is preparing to return to Nagasaki, her hometown, to help her siblings clear out the family home that will soon be sold. Within the walls of this old house lie fragments of the Oi family’s history. Noriko decides to reconstruct the past of her mother, Mitsuko, an atomic bomb survivor, in the hope of coming to terms...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 4 - Épilogue : on a réussi, mais on n’a pas fini (1982-2024)
Duration: 1h03
Subscription access
Within the troupe, the wave of departures that began around _As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent!_ continues, and paths diverge. Activism is a never-ending task: sometimes, it’s exhausting. In 2006, thirty years after the March 8, 1976 speech that closes the first episode of _Nous sortirons de nos cuisines_, Québécois women won their battle for free access to abortion: from then on, voluntary ter...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 3 - As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent! (1979-81)
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 3 - As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent! (1979-81)
New product!Duration: 1h00
Subscription access
The premiere of _As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent!_ takes place 10 days before the first referendum on Quebec sovereignty. A wave of conservatism is sweeping the West: privatization policies benefit those who already have everything, and we witness the gradual dismantling of the state and the common good. Carole Fréchette suggests: “What if we made a play? But this time, we should make a play ...
The Other Rio
Subscription access
Le stade Maracanã brille de mille feux. Nous sommes en 2016, et toutes les caméras sont braquées sur l’inauguration des Jeux olympiques de Rio de Janeiro. À quelques rues de là, c’est un tout autre monde. Assis sur un toit, des gamins regardent de loin les feux d’artifice. Nous sommes dans un bâtiment fédéral en ruine, sous le joug des trafiquants. Là vivent une centaine de familles miséreuses,...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 2 - Môman travaille pas, a trop d’ouvrage! (1974-75)
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 2 - Môman travaille pas, a trop d’ouvrage! (1974-75)
Duration: 1h01Subscription access
The UN declared 1975 the “International Women's Year,” ironically using the singular form in French (Année internationale de la femme). It was a pivotal time: more and more women were divorcing or entering the workforce. Yet a pregnancy was enough to justify dismissal, and maternity leave would not exist until 1979. The members of Théâtre des Cuisines returned to the stage with their second pla...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 1 - Nous aurons les enfants que nous voulons (1968-74)
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 1 - Nous aurons les enfants que nous voulons (1968-74)
Duration: 1h02Subscription access
Montreal, 1973. Canadian law now permits abortion. But the criteria are very restrictive, and women depend on the goodwill—more often the ill will—of the men sitting on the committees that approve or deny them. Quebec is the province where it is most difficult to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and clandestine abortions are common: they are the leading cause of hospitalization among women. Yet...
A Robot of One's Own
Subscription access
Marketing pitches between 1940 and 1970 lead to believe that new technologies facilitating household chores were responsible for women's emancipation in the 20th century. By reusing commercials and television archives, this retro futurist feminist essay questions this capitalist discourse in order to examine the relationship between women and technology.
Mother-To-Be
Subscription access
Can a woman fully realize herself while embracing the demands of motherhood? Filmed during an actual pregnancy and based on the journal director Anne Claire Poirier kept during one of her own, this documentary captures the pregnant female body, revealing the emotions and anxieties that accompany this transformative experience.
Comptines
Subscription access
Spring has arrived in the streets of Montreal. Little girls bring out their bolos, skipping ropes, elastics, and balls, playing joyfully to the rhythm of delightful rhymes. Freshness, spontaneity, innocence, joy and sorrow—it’s all there, in these little songs. A world that adults will be delighted to return to.
Summer Love
Subscription access
On the banks of an abandoned quarry, couples confront their love before taking a dip.
Oasis
Subscription access
At the dawn of their teenage years, Raphaël and Rémi are twins who see their fusional attachment crumble while one of them, suffering from an increasingly marked disability, remains a prisoner of childhood. During one last summer surrounded by nature, time seems to want to stand still.
Baby Drawings
How do we learn to draw? First, we practice holding a crayon without eating it. Then, just a few years later, we’re using sophisticated symbols to represent ourselves, our families, and our imaginations. _Baby Drawings_ covers the development of childhood art from the very first stage of scribbles all the way to the development of spatial perspective.
The Body/transmutationem
_The Body/transmutationem_ is a poetic and intimate documentary short that explores gender transition through the intersecting journeys of two queer individuals. Set to the verses of Uruguayan poet Eduardo Galeano, the film blends everyday scenes, sensitive interviews, and contemplative imagery to examine bodily transformation, identity, and freedom.
Retracing Their Steps
By opening forgotten boxes in the Montreal Gay Archive Center, fragments of history from the LGBTQIA2S+ community are rediscovered. Among them are Michael and René, the first couple to marry in Canada, Linda and Catherine, two owners of the lesbian bar Le Kiev, and Kimura, multidisciplinary artist of diverse origins. The portraits of these diverse characters bear witness to the diversity of Mon...
Eviction
Since 2010, Parthenais has held within its walls the life of a whole queer community. They are gay, lesbian, trans, and they live together in Centre-Sud in the heart of Montreal, in a triplex that is falling apart. Between the parties that sometimes welcome more than two hundred people until the wee hours of the morning, the collective dinners, the great joys and the small despairs, this old fl...
The Sparkle
Kim and Billy work at carnivals. This summer, Kim procrastinates. He plans to leave this family of colleagues to devote himself to his passion, the search for precious stones. The layoff of Billy, his best friend, accelerates his disenchantment. We always dream of elsewhere.
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu : Du bord des bêtes
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu : Du bord des bêtes
Duration: 49 minutesVictor-Lévy Beaulieu is one of the most prolific Quebec writers of the past 50 years. In both his personal life and his work, he is a man of words who boldly and unapologetically voices his convictions. Enriched with excerpts from his writings that deepen his reflections, this documentary reveals both the light and shadow within the man and his work. It also captures the whispers of his house —...
Waiting for Casimir
Subscription access
In the village of Saint-Casimir, a seniors’ residence houses five people. At the heart of this confined space shaped by daily routines, a parallel world unfolds. Hours pass slowly in an endless waiting, punctuated by the presence of a local community TV station that intrudes into their universe through the television screen. Alternating between the sweetness of childhood memories and the presen...
Simon & Marianne
Subscription access
Simon is living with an inoperable brain tumor that casts a shadow over his remaining days. The time for major decisions is approaching. Supported by his partner Marianne, Simon stands at the threshold of two worlds—fragile, lucid, fully present to everything around him. Filmed almost entirely at night and in black and white, the documentary captures their final summer together.
Okurimono
Subscription access
Noriko Oi, a Japanese Canadian who has lived in Montreal for more than 20 years, is preparing to return to Nagasaki, her hometown, to help her siblings clear out the family home that will soon be sold. Within the walls of this old house lie fragments of the Oi family’s history. Noriko decides to reconstruct the past of her mother, Mitsuko, an atomic bomb survivor, in the hope of coming to terms...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 4 - Épilogue : on a réussi, mais on n’a pas fini (1982-2024)
Duration: 1h03
Subscription access
Within the troupe, the wave of departures that began around _As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent!_ continues, and paths diverge. Activism is a never-ending task: sometimes, it’s exhausting. In 2006, thirty years after the March 8, 1976 speech that closes the first episode of _Nous sortirons de nos cuisines_, Québécois women won their battle for free access to abortion: from then on, voluntary ter...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 3 - As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent! (1979-81)
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 3 - As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent! (1979-81)
New product!Duration: 1h00
Subscription access
The premiere of _As-tu vu? Les maisons s’emportent!_ takes place 10 days before the first referendum on Quebec sovereignty. A wave of conservatism is sweeping the West: privatization policies benefit those who already have everything, and we witness the gradual dismantling of the state and the common good. Carole Fréchette suggests: “What if we made a play? But this time, we should make a play ...
The Other Rio
Subscription access
Le stade Maracanã brille de mille feux. Nous sommes en 2016, et toutes les caméras sont braquées sur l’inauguration des Jeux olympiques de Rio de Janeiro. À quelques rues de là, c’est un tout autre monde. Assis sur un toit, des gamins regardent de loin les feux d’artifice. Nous sommes dans un bâtiment fédéral en ruine, sous le joug des trafiquants. Là vivent une centaine de familles miséreuses,...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 2 - Môman travaille pas, a trop d’ouvrage! (1974-75)
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 2 - Môman travaille pas, a trop d’ouvrage! (1974-75)
Duration: 1h01Subscription access
The UN declared 1975 the “International Women's Year,” ironically using the singular form in French (Année internationale de la femme). It was a pivotal time: more and more women were divorcing or entering the workforce. Yet a pregnancy was enough to justify dismissal, and maternity leave would not exist until 1979. The members of Théâtre des Cuisines returned to the stage with their second pla...
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 1 - Nous aurons les enfants que nous voulons (1968-74)
Nous sortirons de nos cuisines - Épisode 1 - Nous aurons les enfants que nous voulons (1968-74)
Duration: 1h02Subscription access
Montreal, 1973. Canadian law now permits abortion. But the criteria are very restrictive, and women depend on the goodwill—more often the ill will—of the men sitting on the committees that approve or deny them. Quebec is the province where it is most difficult to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and clandestine abortions are common: they are the leading cause of hospitalization among women. Yet...
A Robot of One's Own
Subscription access
Marketing pitches between 1940 and 1970 lead to believe that new technologies facilitating household chores were responsible for women's emancipation in the 20th century. By reusing commercials and television archives, this retro futurist feminist essay questions this capitalist discourse in order to examine the relationship between women and technology.
Mother-To-Be
Subscription access
Can a woman fully realize herself while embracing the demands of motherhood? Filmed during an actual pregnancy and based on the journal director Anne Claire Poirier kept during one of her own, this documentary captures the pregnant female body, revealing the emotions and anxieties that accompany this transformative experience.
Comptines
Subscription access
Spring has arrived in the streets of Montreal. Little girls bring out their bolos, skipping ropes, elastics, and balls, playing joyfully to the rhythm of delightful rhymes. Freshness, spontaneity, innocence, joy and sorrow—it’s all there, in these little songs. A world that adults will be delighted to return to.
Summer Love
Subscription access
On the banks of an abandoned quarry, couples confront their love before taking a dip.
Oasis
Subscription access
At the dawn of their teenage years, Raphaël and Rémi are twins who see their fusional attachment crumble while one of them, suffering from an increasingly marked disability, remains a prisoner of childhood. During one last summer surrounded by nature, time seems to want to stand still.
Baby Drawings
How do we learn to draw? First, we practice holding a crayon without eating it. Then, just a few years later, we’re using sophisticated symbols to represent ourselves, our families, and our imaginations. _Baby Drawings_ covers the development of childhood art from the very first stage of scribbles all the way to the development of spatial perspective.
The Body/transmutationem
_The Body/transmutationem_ is a poetic and intimate documentary short that explores gender transition through the intersecting journeys of two queer individuals. Set to the verses of Uruguayan poet Eduardo Galeano, the film blends everyday scenes, sensitive interviews, and contemplative imagery to examine bodily transformation, identity, and freedom.
Retracing Their Steps
By opening forgotten boxes in the Montreal Gay Archive Center, fragments of history from the LGBTQIA2S+ community are rediscovered. Among them are Michael and René, the first couple to marry in Canada, Linda and Catherine, two owners of the lesbian bar Le Kiev, and Kimura, multidisciplinary artist of diverse origins. The portraits of these diverse characters bear witness to the diversity of Mon...
Eviction
Since 2010, Parthenais has held within its walls the life of a whole queer community. They are gay, lesbian, trans, and they live together in Centre-Sud in the heart of Montreal, in a triplex that is falling apart. Between the parties that sometimes welcome more than two hundred people until the wee hours of the morning, the collective dinners, the great joys and the small despairs, this old fl...
The Sparkle
Kim and Billy work at carnivals. This summer, Kim procrastinates. He plans to leave this family of colleagues to devote himself to his passion, the search for precious stones. The layoff of Billy, his best friend, accelerates his disenchantment. We always dream of elsewhere.
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu : Du bord des bêtes
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu : Du bord des bêtes
Duration: 49 minutesVictor-Lévy Beaulieu is one of the most prolific Quebec writers of the past 50 years. In both his personal life and his work, he is a man of words who boldly and unapologetically voices his convictions. Enriched with excerpts from his writings that deepen his reflections, this documentary reveals both the light and shadow within the man and his work. It also captures the whispers of his house —...
