Wild Worlds at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema 2014

Cool and cutting-edge, Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma showcases hundreds of the latest and most exciting creations in international, Canadian and Quebecois film, from famed directors and big-name stars to experimental auteurs and emerging artists…

The 43rd Festival du Nouveau Cinéma runs October 8-19 at several theatres in the city centre, rolling out the red carpet for film premieres and this year’s Cannes and TIFF award-winners, as well as hosting an industry-specific professional conference, numerous workshops and discussions, all kinds of parties, and live performances. Cinephiles flock to the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma this year to see long-awaited films before they’re in wide release and hard-to-find art-house cinema, documentaries and short films well-worthy of the big screen.

Opening the 2014 festival is Philippe Falardeau’s The Good Lie, the story of three Sudanese former child soldiers who settle in small-town America and the Canadian director’s follow-up to his award-winning 2011 drama Monsieur Lazhar. While social issues, politics and the spectacular landscape of Brazil captivate in Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado’s documentary The Salt of the Earth, closing the festival.

Among the many Canadians featured at the 2014 festival, don’t miss Maxime Giroux’s newest project, Félix and Meira, a love story between a Hassidic Jewish woman and a lonely young man – the film recently won Best Canadian feature at the Toronto International Film Festival. More love is on the Canadian menu in Rodrigue Jean’s Love in the Time of Civil War and Rafaël Ouellet’s Gurov Anna, while  Harold Crooks’s documentary The Price We Pay delves into the little-known details of corporate offshore investment and tax shelters. The festival also features the world premieres of Noel Mitrani’s examination of post-war PTSD, Le militaire, Jimmy Larouche’s feature on date-rape drugs, Antoine et Marie, Patricio Henriquez documentary on Guantanamo Bay, Uyghurs, Prisoners of the Absurd, and an array of well-known Quebecois actors in Olivier Godin’s Nouvelles, Nouvelles. Also see new features from Bruce LaBruce, Alexandre Larose, Pierre Hébert, Vincent Grenier, Mike Hoolboom and Phillip Hoffman.

Contemporary art and experimental interactive film also take their rightful place at Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. The festival pairs with Montreal’s Musée d’art contemporain on the North American premier of Japanese artist and electronic-music composer Ryoji Ikeda’s Superposition project, a live event that merges dynamic sound and visuals and the breaks down the imagined line between logic and emotion. Montreal’s international reputation as a forerunner in interactive art and design proves itself in the festival’s Nouvelles écritures programming, viewable for free on touchscreens and tablets at festival headquarters: see eight new works from around the world, taking us from the Parisian underground to the streets of Detroit and small-town USA to behind-the-scenes music videos featuring Arcade Fire and Patrick Watson.

Adding to the innovation, the stranger side of cinema comes out to play in the festival’s Panorama and Temps 0 sections (the latter celebrating its 10th anniversary by opening with Japanese director Sion Sono’s rap-musical Tokyo Tribe), while kids stay entertained by the festival’s Petits Loups programming and professionals meet, greet and plan new projects at the FNC Pro conference. And free outdoor screenings in the Quartier des Spectacles and indoors at the festival headquarters throughout the festival add another level of cinema magic to the city.

THE DETAILS:

Festival du Nouveau Cinema, October 8-19, 2014

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