Gilles Renaud

Gaz Bar Blues

This is the story of Mr. Brochu, whose friends like to call "the Boss". He runs his gas station the best he can and tries to stay happy no matter what happens. This movie relates all the small tragedies surrounding the gaz bar, such as hold-ups, competition from the big companies invading the neighbourhood, and the fact that is sons don't seem to be interested in the gas station.

The Outlander

It is the early 20th century. A stranger arrives in the small, rural community and disrupts the lives of its inhabitants. The man, who refuses to give his name, is dubbed The Outlander. A traveller who disdains conventional behaviour and parochialism, The Outlander disturbs the villagers' complacency and scandalizes the community; he also elicits admiration and gains a woman's love. He ultimately leaves in the same manner he had arrived, but not before he has helped the villagers open their eyes to the larger world beyond their village.

Laurence Anyways

The story of an impossible love between a woman named Fred and a transgender woman named Laurence who reveals her inner desire to become her true self.

The Auction

Gaby owns a farm on which he raises lambs: Bouchard & Sons Farm. But he has no sons. Rather, he has two daughters that he raised like princesses and who live far away, in the big city. One day, the oldest asks him for some financial support so she doesn't end up losing her house...

Roméo et Juliette

Juliette, 15, is the only child of an eminent judge and has had the best of education in the best of schools. Her father is in the limelight because he’s been chosen to preside over one of the most important trials of the past 10 years: the case of Réal Lamontagne, a notorious criminal accused of killing a child. Roméo, 17, is the son of the accused. Even though they come from diametrically opposed universes, Juliette and Roméo fall for each other.

Le complexe d'Édith

Today, Edith is tired of being the favorite spectator of her parents, famous but somewhat outdated singers. She wants to sing too. But just as she decides to take the plunge, familiar demons come to revive her and remind her that there is only one singer in the family. And that she was born after her...

Cheech

Six people, some more depressed than others, living through the worst day of their lives.

Far Away From You, Darling

In 1940, two sisters work in an ammunition factory, but dream of marriage.

The Secret Life of Happy People

A struggling architecture student falls for a free-spirited waitress who has a hidden agenda.

The Woman Who Drinks

On the eve of her final moments, a woman recalls her alcoholic past. She revisits her entire youth, including a binge that, at 46, cost her everything she had: "Loneliness and aging are themes that impose themselves on me, in one form or another. As for alcoholism, it fascinates me because of the revolt it underpins, and revolts me because of the unhappiness it creates around itself.

Route 132

Two old friends and small-time crooks embark on a crime spree, but take an unexpected detour that could lead them down the road to redemption.

All That You Possess

An obsessed scholar attempts to withdraw from the world but finds personal ties drawing him back into the family he had left behind, in this novelistic, beautifully modulated drama from acclaimed Québécois filmmaker Bernard Émond.

Tideline

His father's untimely death sends young Wahab into an intense turmoil. Shaken by family feuds and what he discovers, he decides to bury his father in his native Lebanon. But the idea will prove no less trying in a country scarred by war where a new corpse is one too many.

Le génie du crime

Two gangsters had a mission to start a case of arson, but instead they kidnapped the daughter of crazy mafia boss.

Bernard the Great

It's Bernard's birthday, but he is not happy about it. In a strange world where adults are selfish and indifferent, his parents never accepted him as a child. Bernard doesn't want to grow up if it means to become like them. So he creates a suit that stops his growth. The day he reaches 10 years of age, Bernard will confront his parents and his whole world.

D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers

Exile and possibly death are in the cards for the Queen of France in this edgy cloak-and-dagger adventure based on Alexandre Dumas' unrivaled tale of THE THREE MUSKETEERS and their reckless romantic friend D'Artagnan. Supernatural powers and dark mystical forces add an exciting twist to this classic tale.

Cadavres

Raymond is a jealous, misanthropic, couch potato. Angèle is a sexy TV star, childish and disillusioned. One Halloween, their mother, Solange, suddenly dies. Raymond calls his sister for the first time in 10 years. She agrees to meet him and begins to investigate their mother's death, all in keeping with her TV role of police commissioner. But nothing is simple with the Marchildons. Between a dithering Raymond, the ghost of Solange who continues to haunt her children, and Angèle who's going crazy interviewing suspects, one more bizarre than the next, and the bodies that are filling up the basement, it's hard to keep their love straight. But then, love was always a little twisted in the Marchildon household.

A Day in a Taxi

Two men spend 24 hours driving around the outskirts of Montreal.

Notre Dame de Moncton

Anna (Laurie Gagné) is going through a particularly stressful time: she is preparing to reconnect with Jason (Thomas Lapointe), the son she was forced to place for adoption almost 20 years ago. Unable to go through with this meeting, she takes refuge, clandestinely, in the house of an elderly couple. A dramatic event changes everything and forces Anna to forge an impromptu relationship with Victorine (Louise Turcot). The strange cohabitation of these two women will help them find the courage to face their trials.

The Handyman

One of Canada's talented directors, actress Micheline Lanctot expresses an effective, engaging approach in this simple, poignant drama about Armand (Jocelyn Berube), a handyman with one problem romance after another. The quiet Armand settles into Montreal after his wife has left him and before long, he continues the momentum when an ill-considered liaison with a nubile woman ends on her insistence. Next, Armand gives his heart to a frustrated housewife, though this decision is hardly well thought out. In the meantime, a gay man who rents out a room in his apartment has unfulfilled longings directed at the unsuspecting handyman. L'Homme a Tout Faire won a Silver Medal for "Best Picture" at the 1980 San Sebastian Film Festival.

Bad Seeds

Jacques is an actor who runs away to the countryside to escape his gambling debts. He meets Simon, a rough and wily farmer who manipulates him into a business relationship. After a difficult start, the men help each other grow marijuana. They happen to meet Francesca, a sharp young woman who soon embraces their venture. By the time they get to the winter harvest, the three have learned to live together, but outside forces threaten the delicate balance of their little business...

The Red Kitchen

On a wedding day, women are confined to the kitchen to prepare the meal while the men wait to be served. While men talk politics and sports, women talk about their condition. A teenager observes the gap between the sexes. Co-directed by two actresses, Paule Baillargeon and Frederique Collin, The Red Kitchen is the birth of the Quebec women's cinema. The birth of the film was difficult, and funding has been largely achieved through donations from friends and a benefit concert. This war of the sexes takes place in a demanding formal research, based on the improvisation of the actors, whose preparation took place over long sessions in the workshop. The end result mixes black humour, horror and a very expressive fantasy that gave rise to heated debates.

Valérie

Valerie leaves behind her life at a convent for the wild side of life. Getting a job as a topless dancer, Valerie quickly graduates to becoming a high-class hooker. After amassing a small fortune, she falls in love with an artist, a man who is more-than-willing to overlook Valerie's sordid past.

Cabotins

To avoid total bankruptcy, a down-on-his-luck show-business legend puts on one last show.

The Conquest

Each married on their side, a teacher and a sociologist meet by chance in Quebec. Political and intellectual discussions followed a brief mad love.

La piastre

Robert decides to drop everything and go back to his homeland, accompanied by his daughter and a couple of friends.

Hochelaga, Land of Souls

Mohawk archaeologist Baptiste Asigny engages in a search for his ancestors following a tragic terrain slump in the Percival Molson Stadium.

L'exil

Summoned by his bosses to broadcast only neutral information, Jean, a reporter, leaves town with his friend to go and collect testimonies from simple people, in the heart of the Laurentians, and reach out to them and outside society at genuine freedom, happiness. The departure is joyous, but the isolation in which they confine themselves does not bring either of them the results they expected. The adventure ends in failure. Would it be an illusion to believe that one can escape the community to which one belongs?

Amoureux fou

When Remy, an ad consultant, falls in love with Sarah, the newest star of an ad campaign, sparks fly. The only problem is that they are both married. Sarah's husband knows she will eventually get tired of Remy while his wife just can't let go. At first she throws him out, begs him to come back, cheats on him, hates him, and finally slumps into the worse depression ever. It is amazing what love can do...

The Sex of the Stars

A 12-year-old girl faces a father she hardly remembers after his transition into a woman.

The Mob

Seasoned drug smuggler and thief François “Chico” Tremblay is tired of his modest lifestyle. Given the opportunity to earn $50,000 killing a prominent New York City gangster, he leaps at the opportunity, ignoring the warnings of Montreal’s leading mob boss, who has forbidden local criminals from taking the assignment. Upon his return, Chico discovers he is being pursued from all sides, prompting an unlikely response: he calls a local talk radio show and starts revealing the mafia’s most carefully guarded secrets. As his revelations get more shocking, so do the tactics of his adversaries, culminating in a devastating gut punch of a finale.

The Lady of Colours

In Quebec 40s, orphans or abandoned children are placed in a gigantic psychiatric hospital where children were locked. Were they sick? No, they simply had no family. To escape this oppressive universe, they created a parallel world: the institution's basement where, in a maze of tunnels, they founded an independent company, with its rituals, spells. A young girl, Agnes, reigns over this underground world that adults seem to tolerate.

The Late Blossom

30-year-old Quebec City native Gisèle lives a quiet life as a secretary without happiness with her parents and siblings. One day, tired of being teased by her office mates, she decides to consult a marriage agency to find her soul mate.

Anastasie oh ma chérie

Anastasia chooses to lock herself in an apartment and tame through rituals. She barricades herself, to protect herself from external violence and the destructive invasion of family life.

The Guide to the Perfect Family

A couple in Québec deals with the pitfalls, pressure and high expectations of raising kids in a society obsessed with success and social media image.

Fantastica

In this French–Canadian oddity of music and drama, an actress in a traveling musical revue is involved with the show's director until she meets and falls for an aging ecological activist. He too is drawn to her, and together they try to stop a factory from being built over an old-growth forest.

The Heart Exposed

When 24 year old apiring actor Mathieu meets and falls for 39 year old Jean-Marc who has just ended a seven year relationship, things are not all roses. In addition to their age difference there's the matter of Mathieu's five year old son from a previous marriage.

The Plouffe Family

The lives of the average Quebecois Plouffe family during the final years of the depression and through World War II.

Bon Cop Bad Cop

When the body of the executive of hockey Benoit Brisset is found on the billboard of the border of Quebec and Ontario, the jurisdiction of the crime is shared between the two police forces and detectives David Bouchard from Montreal and Martin Ward from Toronto are assigned to work together. With totally different styles, attitudes and languages.

La Contemplation du mystère

Éloi, whose father was killed in a hunting accident a year ago, is called to take part in a strange tribute ceremony in the country. There, immersed in a disturbing world of strange mystical codes, he learns that his father was tracking a huge buck with awe-inspiring antlers alongside the “Indian”. After several outstanding short films, Aurtenèche delivers a first feature that obliquely references the legend of Saint Hubert, who encountered the Almighty while hunting a stag. A cryptic thriller, hidden manuscripts, the quest for self-knowledge, psychotropic drugs: La Contemplation du mystère boldly shifts between moods and genres.

Once Upon a Time in the East

Two women and a transvestite gay man cross paths in this French Canadian drama. The transvestite is preparing for a drag-queen beauty pageant, and has decided to present himself as Cleopatra. Of the two women, one was just fired from her waitressing job and seeks to go back to work at the nightclub where the beauty pageant is to be held. The other woman's mother has just won one million food stamps.

Peak Everything

Adam is a kind-hearted kennel-owner. Hypersensitive and borderline depressed, Adam orders a therapeutic solar lamp. Through the lamp’s supplier's technical support line, he meets Tina, a radiant woman with a voice that soothes all of his worries. This unexpected encounter changes everything: Earth trembles, and hearts explode… It's love!

La naissance d'une messe

Making of documentary filmed over months of rehearsal and experimentation between director André Brassard and the cast to flesh out Michel Tremblay's "Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d’été".

The Hair of the Beast

Takes place in 1665 in New France at a time when a part of Canada was colonialized by France. Joseph Côté escapes from a prison in order to avoid death by hanging. Moreover, while some colonial soldiers are chasing him, Joseph takes the identity of a Jesuit and hides in the seigneury of Beaufort where most men are waiting for "daughters of the king." (French women who were sent to Canada in order to find a husband.) At night, Joseph finds out that there are werewolves that terrorize the village. Besides, things get complicated when he falls in love with Marie Labotte, a "daughter of the king" that no one wants to marry. All in all, by simply trying to protect his life and Marie's, Joseph will end up fighting against the werewolves.

Le grand jour

A day in the life of two Québec families reunited for their children's wedding.

A Woman in Transit

Even though the protagonist of the Canadian Femme De L'Hotel is a female filmmaker, one would think twice before suggesting that this effort by Swiss-born director Lea Pool is autobiographical. Paule Baillargeon portrays a well-known director who returns to her home town of Montreal to film a high-budget musical drama. At her hotel, Paule has a brief but unsettling encounter with a suicidal elderly woman (Louise Marleau). This element of the plot is briefly forgotten as we get to know the actors in Paule's current project. Then she meets the old lady again, and with mounting incredulity Paule discovers that the actual events in the woman's life mirror the fictional events in the director's film.