by MATTHEW HAYS

Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois has certainly taken its thrashings over the years. Celebrating its 21st year this week, what some see as a vital showcasing of the previous 12 months’ film and video, others disparage as largely redundant. The festival has had its politically charged moments; several years ago, fest organizers raised some eyebrows when they allowed English-language films to be screened, even when they lacked French subtitles. Last year, Les Rendez-vous faced charges that the fest excluded people of colour.

Whatever its problems may be, I would argue this fest serves as a vital 11 days of reckoning, a chance for the press, film community and entire public to catch up on what they missed the year previous. After all, though Quebec generally fares a bit better than English Canada, we still do suffer from a syndrome whereby local stuff just doesn’t get seen properly by the locals. Getting screen time on our own screens doesn’t appear to be getting any easier as the years roll by.

Screening politics

Films about race and political identity abound at Les Rendez-vous. Of particular interest is Brenda Keesal’s feature directorial debut, Jack & Ella, in which the relationship between a black man and a Jewish woman is explored. The film touches further on social issues such as alcoholism; Keesal manages to evoke sincere emotion with her work, while never succumbing to the maudlin. This is a young Montreal filmmaker to watch, undoubtedly. The doc feature Undying Love, which features some incredible interviews with Holocaust survivors who met up in Hitler’s death camps, is pretty astonishing. The stories are well told, touching and rife with irony. As some of the interview subjects put it, “Hitler was our matchmaker.” As surreal as it gets.

Cool biographies are also plentiful here. I loved Paule Baillargeon’s loving ode to his late friend, Quebec filmmaking demigod Claude Jutra. This 82-minute doc boasts personal interviews with a number of Jutra’s buddies and colleagues. Produced by the NFB, it’s an all-important record of this legend’s profound impact on Quebec and Canadian cinema. Luc Picard won a richly deserved Genie for his work in The Savage Messiah, in which he plays the nasty and notorious Roch Theriault, the cult leader who was imprisoned after a number of his wives mysteriously disappeared. The film itself is somewhat clumsy, but that doesn’t take away from Picard’s artful performance.

Unofficial list of honourables

Les Rendez-vous offers a series of awards to participants, and during its run Quebec’s own film awards ceremony, the Jutras, take place (the event airs this Sunday night, Feb. 23). Here are my own unofficial honours, given to various Quebec film and video types, in no particular order: Most Worthy Resurrection of an Unsung Hero: Merrily Weisbord and Tanya Ballantine Tree deserve serious kudos for their in-depth look at the superb novelist and screenwriter Ted Allan. They even got the divine actress Gena Rowlands to chime in. Best Illumination of Local Dire Situation Made Even Worse By Unthinking Authorities: Squat!, Eve Lamont’s take on the struggle for local homeless people to find shelter in a decreasingly livable Montreal. Bravo! Most Endearing Look at Vintage Montreal: Les Rossy, Jennifer Alleyn’s doc profile of the family behind the famous Quebec chain of shops. Strangest but Truest Tall Family Tales: Ole Gjerstad’s NFB doc My Doukhobor Cousins, a film about the cultural experiences of the Doukhobors that demands to be seen. Gutsiest Political Doc: Maxime, McDuff et McDo, in which the inimitable Magnus Isacsson tackles the Golden Arches, the youth who work beneath them and their struggle to unionize. Most Trailblazing Animation That Demands to Be Seen Again (and Again): Flux, the sublime NFB-produced seven-minute-and-40-second ode to the life cycle, brought to us by Chris Hinton, the animation genius behind such oddities as Blackfly and Watching TV. :

Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois opens today, Thursday, Feb. 20, and screens until March 2 at the Cinémathèque québécoise, NFB, Beaubien and Place-des-arts. Info: www.rvcq.com

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