This time CBC won’t get away with it

Too often Radio-Canada has avoided a premature decision to stay the same.

To end the film gala in a month when Quebec cinema is enjoying its best days, when three film festivals are held in Quebec, proves that Radio-Canada is detached from society and maddened about its cultural role. to play

The Cinemania festival, which opens tomorrow until November 13 in Montreal, is adding a “Films du Québec” competition to its program, while the public broadcaster takes a nosedive at the Quebec cinema gala. Eleven films will be screened there, including white dogBy Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalet, he will start the event and compete in the international category.

25 follows^e edition of the International Documentary Conference in Montreal from November 17 to 27. 134 films from 49 countries will be screened, including a national competition between seven Canadian feature documentaries. Cinema plays a central role here, despite Radio-Canada’s intentions. Forty-nine countries registered 134 documentaries for these encounters, giving a special place to emerging filmmakers. This year, 58 of them, including 27 from abroad, will present their first or second work.

41 years of festival

When Radio-Canada announced without any consultation, not with the community, but with Telefilm and SODEC, there would be no movie, there was excitement in Rouen-Noranda. Jacques Matte and two of his colleagues, Louis Dallaire and Guy Parent, prepared the 41st edition of the International Film Festival in Abitibi-Temiscamingue with a hundred volunteers.

As I write these lines, I am still in Ruin. This is only the second time I have attended this festival, whose notoriety has long crossed the borders of Abitibi and Quebec. The festival showcases dozens of works and directors from Quebec and abroad. The current edition featured an animated feature in North America Pharaoh, Savage and PrincessDirected by Michel Ocelot, Comedy Jai Jai Jai Jai including François Desagnot and many world premiere films Waiting for Rife Luc Cote and Patricio Henriquez, short film Calf run By Julie Dallaire and above all, the film adaptation of Francois Archbault’s hit play, You will remember me. Remy Girard is brilliant as the young actress Carelle Tremblay. The highly successful and touching film by Eric Tessier is in danger of winning top honors and the Hydro-Québec prize.

The festival will teach me a lesson

The Rouen-Noranda festival fostered a passion for cinema among thousands of Abitibi residents. To realize that the movie is far from breathing in the theaters, one has to see the Copper Theater being packed from morning to evening on the festival day.

My readers know that I often doubt its survival, especially from a pandemic. These few days in Rouen, surrounded by audiences of all ages, happy to find themselves in a crowded room to discover new films, convinced me that cinema in theaters is far from dead.

One day at the Rouen festival is all it takes to realize that there are too many Quebec moviegoers for Radio-Canada management to reconsider its ill-fated decision to end a gala celebrating our cinema.