Montreal: Fifty-three documentary films from 25 countries, the majority North American premieres, and four evenings of roundtable debates and workshops are among highlights at this year’s Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire du Montreal, Dec. 1-5.

The screening program opens with director Rolando Diaz presenting his investigation of the condition of women in Cuba, Si me comprendieras (If Only You Understood).

Other high-profile films on the program include Jean-Marie Teno’s Chef! (France/Cameroon), a portrait of village justice in Cameroon; Donigan Cumming’s street life chronicle Erratic Angel (Canada); Chilean director Silvio Caiozzi’s doc on the victims of dictatorship, Fernando is Back; French director Sergei Dvortsevoy’s Highway, Grand Prix winner at the ’99 Marseilles Documentary Film Festival; and Manon Barbeau’s L’Armee de l’ombre, an extended chronicle of life with street punks and artists produced by the National Film Board.

As an avant-premiere on Nov. 30, distrib Cinema Libre and filmmakers Malcolm Guy, Magnus Isacsson and Anna Paskal are presenting their new film Pressure Point, a doc on the anti-mai activists.

Filmmaker Jean-Daniel Lafond, chairman of the board of Rencontres, says programmers from Europe and Latin America were invited to select films from their own territories. International guests attending include Steen Muller, director of the European Documentary Network; Kerstin Hagrup, coordinator of Filmkontakt, a Scandinavian production and distribution company; Jean Perret, director of Festival des Films Documentaires Visions du Reel de Nyon (Suisse); and Argentinean filmmaker Marcelo Cespedes.

Lafond says funding for Rencontres continues to be a huge challenge, but adds there’s a ray of hope with Tele-Quebec signing on as the festival’s official broadcaster.

The Rencontres forum on Sunday, Dec. 5 asks ‘Is Public Television in Crisis?’ The workshop series considers creative editing, the cinema verite process, the social and political impact of documentaries, and the writing of documentaries.

The second edition of Rencontres is dedicated to the memory of filmmakers Yvan Patry and Pierre Perrault.

Rencontres programs and screenings take place at Cinematheque Quebecoise (the program is available on the Cinematheque website – www.cinematheque.qc.ca) and at Cinema onf.