Montreal: This year’s Rendez-vous du cinema quebecois retrospective, Feb. 11-17, includes 17 features, 42 short and medium-length films, some 40 documentaries and as many videos, close to 150 productions in all. A selection from the program subsequently travels to Quebec City, Winnipeg, Hull, Que., and Vancouver.

The Rendez-vous’ 17th edition opens with an invitation-only premiere of Lea Pool’s sixth feature, the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story Emporte-moi. Yves Dion’s Le Grand Serpent du Monde, starring Murray Head and Zoe Latraverse, is also on the program. The rare National Film Board feature screens Feb. 16. Both the Pool and Dion films are being released directly to theaters, with Pool’s also entered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival-Kinderfilmfest, Feb. 10-21.

Rendez-vous tributes go to Video Femmes, the women’s filmmaking collective (Feb. 14); Coop Video, founded by director Robert Morin and producer Lorraine Dufour; veteran filmmaker Jean-Pierre Lefebvre; and sardec, the Quebec screenwriters guild, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary (Feb. 12).

Quebec premieres include the Jean-Marc Vallee short Les Mots Magiques and Pierre Houle’s doc tribute to painter Jean-Pierre Riopelle, Riopelle Sans Title – 1999 Collage, the two closing-night films. A surprise to some, Houle’s film has apparently been passed over by the International Festival of Films on Art/Festival International du Films sur l’Art, March 9-14, despite Riopelle’s role as fifa’s honorary president.

Finalists for the aqcc-sodec award for best feature-length film of 1998 are Charles Biname’s Le Coeur au poing, Paul Tana’s La Deroute, Robert Morin’s Quiconque meurt, meurt a douleur, a devastating cinema verite doc on drug addiction, Jeanne Crepeau’s long-in-the-making Revoir Julie and Daniel Cross’ well-traveled doc The Street. Interestingly, none of the aqcc-sodec finalists are nominated for a best motion picture Prix Jutra.

Asked to comment on the Rendez-vous’ role in relation to the newly launched Jutra gala (March 7), festival director Michel Coulombe says the retrospective serves as a kind of preview. ‘Think of the Rendez-vous as the Quebec equivalent of the Golden Globes,’ he says.

Two book launches are also part of this year’s 17th Rendez-vous program (www.coproductions.com/rendez-vous/), Gilles Carle’s Nature d’un Cineaste and Pierre Hebert’s l’Ange et l’Automate.