This time CBC won’t get away with it

Radio-Canada has survived an untimely end to being like this again.

In the same month that Quebec has three film festivals, ending the film gala when Quebec cinema is enjoying its best days is proof that radio-Canada is cut off from society and not obsessively concerned about its cultural role. want to play

While the public broadcaster turns its nose at the Quebec Cinema Gala, the Cinemamania festival, which opens tomorrow in Montreal until November 13, adds the “Films to Quebec” competition to its program. Eleven films will be screened there including white dogAnaïs Barbeau-Lavette will open the event and compete in the international category.

25 will follow^e Edition of the International Documentary Meetings in Montreal, November 17 to 27. 134 films from 49 countries will be presented, including a national competition between seven Canadian specialty documentaries. Despite what Radio-Canada thinks, cinema plays an important role here. Forty-nine countries have entered 134 documentaries for these meetings, which hold a special place for emerging filmmakers. This year, 58 of them will present a first or second work, including 27 from abroad.

41 years of festival

Although Radio-Canada announced that without any consultation, with the community, with Telefilm and SODEC, without which our cinema would not exist, there was excitement in Rouyn-Noranda. Jacques Matte and his two partners, Louis Dallaire and Guy Parent, along with a hundred volunteers, produced the 41st edition of the International Film Festival at Abidpi-Temiscamingue.

As I write these lines, I am still in Ruin. This will be my second time attending this festival in a long time across the borders of Abidjan and Quebec. The festival showcased dozens of works and directors from Quebec and abroad. The current version premiered the animated feature in North America The Pharaoh, the Barbarian and the PrincessA comedy written by director Michel Ocelot Joy Joy Joy Joy including François Desagnat and many world premiere films Waiting for Raif Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez, short film Calf running A film adaptation of Julie Taller’s and, above all, François Archambault’s successful play, You will remember me. Remy Girard gives a great performance as young actress Karel Tremblay. Eric Tessier’s highly successful and touching film is in danger of winning top awards and the Hydro-Québec prize.

The festival teaches me a lesson

The Rouyn-Noranda Festival has been cultivating a taste for cinema among thousands of Abidjan residents for years. To realize that cinema in theaters is more than breath-taking, one has to see the Copper Theater packed from morning to evening every day of the festival.

My readers know that I often doubted its survival, especially after the epidemic. In these few days surrounded by audiences of all ages, who were more than happy to find themselves in a crowded room to discover new films, Ruin made me realize that cinema in theaters is far from dead.

One only needs to spend a day at the Rouen festival to realize that Quebec moviegoers are too numerous to let Radio-Canada management reconsider its ill-advised decision to end a gala celebrating our cinema.