Five must-see local films at Festival Nouveau Cinéma

The 2016 edition of the Festival Nouveau Cinéma is the exciting last festival of the fall season, filled with glittering film buffs milling around in dashing scarves from cinema to cinema downtown and beyond. It unites groundbreaking and limit-stretching films from around the world by the hundreds as well as a selection of Quebec films that’s sure to be stellar, thanks to a near-impeccable approach to programming.

From October 5 to 16, 2016, here are five local films presented at the festival in English (or with English subtitles) that you simply can’t afford to miss.

1) PRANK, directed by Vincent Biron

This debut feature film by short-film star Biron was a hit at both the Venice film festival and TIFF, and now the tale of this lovelorn teenage outsider turned professional prankster comes to Montréal. Full of awkward hilarity and poignant haplessness, this film depicts adolescence to a tee.

2) DÉSERTS, directed by Charles-André Coderre and Yann-Manuel Hernandez

The directors of this Death Valley road-trip movie are better known for their experimental art films and shorts, which explains its unique approach to the loaded filmic moment. As the main protagonist meets a woman on his path, the journey changes and turns inward into the depth of their psyches.

3) WE’RE STILL TOGETHER, directed by Jesse Klein

This sophomore feature by Klein has been garnering accolades in indie festivals. This story of a chubby 20something suburbanite takes a sharp turn from saccharine when he meets an unlikely partner-in-crime, an unhinged bartender that’s about to turn this night into a life-changer.

4) STEALING ALICE, directed by Marc Séguin

Séguin is a novelist and painter making his debut in film, so this flick promises a delicious dose of artistic sensibility. Its hushed tones and international setting (it was filmed in Venice, New York, Northern Quebec, Labrador and beyond) dives into the mind and life of Alice, a woman on a mission to find answers.

5) OH WHAT A WONDERFUL FEELING, directed by François Jaros

This short presented within the short-film program is a study in mood and muted narrative power, set in a truck stop and filled with haunting implications. Jaros’s latest features a lone girl, a fox and vehicles of various sorts in an abstract sort of equation that garnered it nods at both Cannes and TIFF.

The details

Festival Nouveau Cinéma

October 5 to 16, 2016

Various locations

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