A new film festival is always cause for celebration, and in winter in Montreal, I and other cinephiles looking for a reason to get out of the house. It's long overdue that this city have a critics week, and we're excited to see what the first edition has in store. If you live in or nearby the cultural centre of La Belle Province, have a read through the press release, peruse each day's film offerings, and read more on the website for ticket and cinema information
The Montreal Critics’ Week is proud to unveil its first edition, taking place at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma Moderne from January 13th to the 19th, 2025. A selection of 19 films – short, medium, and feature-length – is bundled together over seven distinct evenings and the course of seven double and triple-billed programs. Each program will be followed by in-depth conversations between filmmakers, writers, and the public.
An initiative of the Montreal-based online magazine Panorama-cinéma, the first annual Montreal Critics’ Week – the first of its kind in Canada – extends the online magazine’s critical lens offline by fostering a space for discourse and discovery in cinema. The festival showcases new and distinct works paired, juxtaposed or contrasted to encourage inquisitive spectatorship that considers the thematic, political, and formal ramifications of the chosen works.
The program for the inaugural Montreal Critics’ Week was compiled by a committee composed of Ariel Esteban Cayer, Mathieu Li-Goyette, and Olivier Thibodeau [Panorama-cinéma] as well as Mélopée B. Montminy [24 images] and Justine Smith [Little White Lies, Robert Ebert.com].
In a mission statement from Cayer and Li-Goyette, the two wrote: This new event opens on a cliché: that film criticism – and by extension film critics – may be too demanding, elitist, disgruntled, or obsolete. And yet, film criticism also endeavors to define new trends, to champion new voices, and to curate works in ways that propel the art form forward – that make cinema accessible in a project distinct from the requirements of marketing. Everywhere, similar questions arise again and again, concerning the streaming ecosystem, the politics of festivals, the lack of funding in the arts, and the limits of the image itself. More than ever, film critics must make a useful contribution to these conversations through their choices. This selection attempts to paint a critical portrait of the world today, grappled with by films of great perspective, ambition, and integrity, no matter whether they are rendered in hushed, soft tones or bursts of DIY anger, or even provocation. As such, this selection of works embodies many of the tensions of the current moment, around questions of austerity, separating fact from fiction, challenging war and colonialism, confronting loss or memory, and bringing people together around the act of creation and its community. We invite you to discover the films, and the connections and conversations they may create when placed together in such a context.
OPENING NIGHT Monday, January 13, 2025 – OFF TRACK
The world is small within the confines of normalcy. But the fringe extends endlessly, merely requiring an outstretched hand that unlocks the wonders on the other side of the track.
Twilight, Park Sye-young, 17” (South Korea), International Premiere A man and a dog walk to the tip of the mountain every evening. There is a light that shines at sunset. They are looking for it, but the sun has set, and the forest is deep.
A Man Imagined, Melanie Shatzky & Brian M. Cassidy, 62” (Canada), Quebec Premiere This immersive documentary is a bracingly intimate and hallucinatory portrait of 67-year-old Lloyd, a man with schizophrenia surviving amidst urban detritus and decay.
Two Cuckolds Go Swimming, Winston DeGiobbi, 82” (Canada), World Premiere When adult film star Molly Chambers (Deragh Campbell) flies to Cape Breton to visit her mom, she’s forced to examine her own attachments to home in this austere, dream-like drama.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025 – CHRONICLES OF A DEATH FORETOLD
The temporalities of death interweave candidly in this program dedicated to the grieving process: a creative opportunity for characters that confront the idea of transience with lyrical and epic forms.
Super Happy Forever, Kohei Igarashi, 94” (Japan, France), Quebec Premiere Sano tries to find a red cap forgotten five years earlier by his ex-wife. An impeccable seaside melodrama, weaving together the dimensions of love and grief.
Louis Riel, ou Le ciel touche la terre, Matias Meyer, 83” (Canada), Canadian Premiere Matias Meyer observes and embodies the last days of Metis leader Louis Riel, the essential figure in Canadian history, with an undeniable Bressonian touch.
Now He Is in the Truth, Roberto Tarazona, 11” (Cuba), World Premiere A camera wanders through the Cuban countryside where the blinding light of faith struggles to fully illuminate an evanescent peasantry.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 – FAMILY ALBUMS
Can the outline of a mountain tell us about the people who live on the land? What makes up a family history? Three radical approaches to the construction of memory on screen.
Lost Chapters, Lorena Alvarado, 67” (Venezuela, US), North American Premiere Ena returns to Venezuela and embarks on a familial search reminiscent of both the intimacy of Akerman and the labyrinthine qualities of Borges.
Merman, Ana Lungu, 85” (Romania), North American Premiere Ana Lungu examines the male gaze through Romanian archives that capture images of women from WWII until the Revolution.
UNDR., Kamal Aljafari, 15” (Palestine, Germany), Canadian Premiere In his companion piece to A Fidai Film, Aljafari repurposes archival footage to show a Palestinian landscape ceaselessly transformed from the sky.
Thursday, January 16, 2025 – STILL LIFE
A long hike alongside nature's refugees and admirers in which mise en scene, whether digital or analog, approaches flora as a living space, whether a vector of paranoia or a space for reverence.
Base Station, Park Sye-young and Yeon Ye-ji, 67” (South Korea), International Premiere Two hypochondriac siblings have taken to the mountains to avoid all electromagnetic frequencies in this hypnotic lesson in claustrophobia and the evocative power of light.
Sept promenades avec Mark Brown, Pierre Creton and Vincent Barré, 104” (France), Quebec Premiere Pierre Creton and Vincent Barré reconnect with the world of plants and flowers by following the paleo-botanist Mark Brown in his ambition to recreate a primordial forest in Normandy.
Friday, January 17, 2025 – AT DUSK
A triple bill about vanishing traditions – whether poetry, dance, or baseball – that devotees practice at nightfall: so many shining secrets that the camera probes with tremendous insight.
Taman-Taman (Park), So Yo-Hen, 100” (Taiwan), North American Premiere Two Indonesian poets meet at Tainan Park and take advantage of the day to write poetry. An astonishing experimental film on the importance of slowing down and the art of speech itself.
Let The Red Moon Burn, Ralitsa Doncheva, 7” (Canada, Bulgaria) A ghostly ethnographic film shot during the Zheravna Festival of Costume in Bulgaria.
Eephus, Carson Lund, 98” (US), Quebec Premiere As their beloved small-town baseball field is about to be torn down, two dedicated teams face off for a final day of shenanigans. Carson Lund showcases the extent of his love for the game.
Saturday, January 18, 2025 – OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Nurturing flowers, raising children, or stomping on the sidewalk. A portrait of resistance as a daily occurrence, between gentle gestures and fits of rage, questing for dignity and laying root.
Fujiyama Cotton, Taku Aoyagi, 95” (Japan), International Premiere Emerging documentarian Taku Aoyagi constructs an exemplary documentary on disability and those who care for the land and encourage us to see the world with kindness.
Mémoire fertile, Michel Khleifi, 99” (Palestine, Belgium) The first film shot by a Palestinian director within the borders of the West Bank, Fertile Memory captures essential images of women’s lives under apartheid.
Spiders Web, Frank Dunsten, Ben et Oliver Roberts, 65” (Canada), Quebec Premiere Spider, a 56-years-old man from Toronto, faces new jail time for an assault he committed during a drunken night out. A delirious social drama ensues, foulmouthed and broke.
CLOSING NIGHT Sunday, January 19, 2025 – WHERE IS MY FRIEND’S HOUSE?
The unexpected encounter between two bittersweet filmmakers whose singular outlook on identity, between Canada and Iran, unfolds through a disposition for wander, wonder and regret.
Une langue universelle, Matthew Rankin, 89” (Canada) An alternative Canada between Tati and Kiarostami, where the common language is Farsi. Matthew Rankin’s latest surreal comedy, between hilarious drollery and bitter disillusionment.
A Shrine, Abdolreza Kahani, 82” (Canada, Iran, France), North American Premiere A tired mechanic builds a religious shrine out of imported wood and takes the road, in this subversive DIY film offering an offbeat window into the Iranian community of Quebec.