Montreal: Three Quebec movies are among 24 films in official competition for this year’s Grand Prix des Ameriques at the Montreal World Film Festival. WFF’s 25th edition, which runs Aug. 23 to Sept. 3, includes more than 380 films from 66 countries, among them the gala opening-night screening of Canadian film L’Ange de Goudron from director Denis Chouinard.

This year’s WFF program includes 221 feature films and 22 new Canadian feature-length films and TV movies, 18 of which will be screened in the festival’s Panorama Canada section.

This year’s edition includes an abundance of international and North American premieres spread over 10 programming sections, including World Greats/Hors Concours; new film trends in Cinema of Tomorrow, sponsored by Universal Studios Canada; spotlights on Latin American, Italian and German cinemas; Films for Television; a Tribute section; and the 32nd annual Canadian Student Film Festival.

As for festival prizes, best student film receives the National Film Board’s Norman McLaren Award. The Kodak Canada Grand Prize goes to best new student director and the new $10,000 Belanger Sauve prize to the best Latin American film in the festival. The $25,000 Telefilm Canada Award goes to the best Canadian film director.

WFF is the only ‘A’ category competitive festival in North America recognized by FIAPF.

Grand Prix des Ameriques

Three Canadian films and a France/Canada coproduction are part of this year’s official competition: Catherine Martin’s Mariages (distributed by Film Tonic), Francis Leclerc’s Une Jeune Fille a la Fenetre (Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm), Chouinard’s L’Ange de Goudron (AAV) and Claude Miller’s Betty Fischer et autres histoires (AAV).

In Mariages, a 20-year-old woman is torn between intense feelings and her love of nature and the austere code of Quebec religious life at the end of the 19th century.

Cast includes Marie-Eve Bertrand, Guylaine Tremblay, Helene Loiselle, Mirianne Brule, David Boutin, Markita Boies and Raymond Cloutier.

The film is produced by Lorraine Dufour of Coop Video de Montreal/Les Productions 23 and shot by acclaimed cinematographer Jean-Claude Labrecque.

In L’Ange de Goudron, a sort of sequel to the director’s immigrant stowaway drama Clandestins, an Algerian family who fled the terrible civil war in that country prepares for the rites of Canadian citizenship, only to have everything put in jeopardy when their teenage son joins up with a group of political activists.

Cast includes Zinedine Soualem, Hiam Abbass, Rabah Ait Ouyahia, Catherine Trudeau, Kenza Abiabdillah, Marc Beaupre, Koumba Ball and Ray Cloutier.

The film is produced by Roger Frappier and Luc Vandal of Studio Max Films and shot by DOP Guy Dufaux.

In Une Jeune Fille a la Fenetre, Leclerc’s feature film debut, a vibrant but fragile young woman in her twenties leaves the Quebec countryside, circa 1925, to discover the freedom and charm of city life.

Cast includes Fanny Mallette, Hughes Frenette, Evelyne Rompre, Daniel Parent, Louis-David Morasse, Richard Fagon, Rosa Zacharie, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Denis Bernard, Richard Frechette and chanteuse Diane Dufresne.

The film was shot on location in historic Quebec City and produced by Barbara Shrier of Palomar. Steve Asselin is the DOP and Glenn Berman is picture editor.

In the psychological thriller Betty Fischer, adapted by Sylvie Koechlin from the Ruth Rendell novel The Tree of Hands, a successful young female novelist’s world is turned upside down when her somewhat insane mother shows up after an extended absence with an abused child in tow.

Cast includes Sandrine Kiberlain, Nicole Garcia, Mathilde Seigner and Canadian actors Luck Mervil and Yves Jacques.

Producers include Yves Marmion of UGC/YM, Annie Miller of Les Films de la Boissiere and Nicole Robert of Montreal’s Go Films. Original music is by Francois Dompierre.

International films

International films competing for the Grand Prix des Ameriques include two-time Grand Prix-winning Iranian director Majid Majidi’s (Les Enfants du Ciel, 1997, and La Couleur du Paradis, 1999) Baran, a story of Afghan refugees exiled to Iran following the Soviet Union’s brutal invasion in 1979.

Also competing for the Grand Prix are Swedish master Jan Troell’s As White as in Snow, the real-life tale of Sweden’s first female aviator, Elsa Andersson; South Korean director Kwak Kyung-Taek’s Chingu (Friend), a portrait of life in the southern port town of Pusan in the repressive 1970s; and Japanese director Kon Ichikawa’s 18th century tale Kah-Chan (Big Mama).

Other contenders include U.S. director Todd Field’s tale of young romance, In the Bedroom; Italian director Pappi Corsicato’s inquiry into the nature of love and reality, Chimera; Humberto Solas’ Cuba/Spain coproduction Miel Para Oshun (Honey for Oshun), one of three Latin American films in competition; and four German films, including Roland Suso Richter’s Der Tunnel (K-Films Amerique), a true story set in East Germany in 1961, and Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Das Experiment, about a curious cabby and would-be scribe who investigates a strange psychological experiment.

This year’s WFF national cinema focus is Germany, with close to a dozen new German feature films on the program as well as a screening of the digitally restored 1927 Fritz Lang classic Metropolis.

Panorama Canada

Selective feature-length entries in this year’s Panorama Canada section include Julie Hivon’s Creme Glacee, Chocolate et autres consolations (distributed by Cinema Libre), a story of three twentysomethings who reach ‘a fork in life’s road;’ Erik Canuel’s highly anticipated feature film debut La loi du Cochon (Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm), a contemporary tale of pig farming, surrogate motherhood and compulsive gambling, written by Joanne Arseneau and starring Isabel Richer; and Paul Lynch’s More to Love, an original yarn about an insecure and overweight young woman who works at a sex-toy company and learns ‘it’s all about attitude’ after meeting up with ‘a confident queen-sized party girl.’

Another interesting feature being showcased at WFF is Gord Halloran’s directorial debut Singing the Bones, a low-budget, digital video feature shot on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. It’s about a mysterious pregnancy that affects three women and ‘creates the possibility of a miracle,’ says actor and coproducer Caitlin Hicks, who wrote and toured with the well-received original stage play of the same name. Hicks plays the film’s three principal roles of a pregnant mom, obstetrician and midwife.

The movie combines documentary and narrative film techniques and was shot over five weeks with some private money but no public funds.

Both Hicks and director Halloran, a multitalented commercial artist and movie production designer (The Ice Painting Project, Clouds), will be at WFF, where they hope to sign a distribution agreement.

Other new Canadian feature films screening at WFF are Bob Clark’s Now & Forever, a moving tale of Native spirituality and friendship between a young boy and a girl; Roy Cross’ So Faraway and Blue, a black-and-white story about a female Montreal teen who ties up on a quest with a wandering dude from Alberta; Robin Schlaht’s Solitude, an exploration of fleeting interconnections between two women and a Benedictine monk who meet one languid summer at a rural monastery retreat; and director Andre Currie’s Mile Zero, a psychological portrait of a man’s desperation following the breakup of his marriage and family.

Seven short films, scripted, directed and produced by students from l’Institut National de l’Image et du Son, Quebec’s advanced film and TV school, are also being showcased in the Panorama section.

Spotlight on the NFB

The National Film Board has two short films in official competition, Pjotr Sapegin’s Aria, a beautifully animated tale of love and loneliness inspired by Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, coproduced by the French Program Animation/Youth Studio and Pravda of Norway, and Philippe Vaucher’s Chasse Papillon/The Song Catcher, an animated story of an old man obsessed with his dearly departed wife who spends his days catching butterflies.

The NFB has five new feature-length films, a short and two medium-length films in this year’s Panorama Canada section, including Oscar nominee Cordell Barker’s latest animated high jinks, Strange Invaders.

The NFB lineup includes Marie Brodeur’s French Program doc La Danse du Guerrier, an elaborate essay on violence as expressed in ritualized war dances from across the ages, and Lisa Fitzgibbons’ Apres… a compassionate, one-hour documentary portrayal of the director’s relationship with two people who, like her, lost their fathers to suicide at a young age.

In Obachan’s Garden, director/producer Linda Ohama (The Last Harvest) delivers an intensely moving reflection on Japanese-Canadian history in a dramatized documentary story of the filmmaker’s grandmother and a very, very old Japanese lady who came to Canada as a ‘picture bride’ long ago.

In My Mother’s Village, acclaimed filmmaker John Paskievich journeys to his parent’s Ukrainian homeland in an exploration of how children of refugees and immigrants are torn between two worlds.

The program also includes Oscar nominee Paul Cowan’s hard-hitting doc Westray, a story of the scandalous 1992 Nova Scotia mine disaster and the working people who gambled and lost with their lives; A travers chant, Tahani Rached’s portrait of the remarkable choral group Ensembler vocal d’Outremont; and Sophie Bissonnette’s Partition pour voix des femmes, an international portrait of spirited women active in changing the world, coproduced with Productions Virage.

Some of the highlights in the fascinating and generally underrated TV movie section include Gauvreau ou l’Obligation de la liberte, Charles Biname’s portrait of Quebec artist and writer Pierre Gauvreau; Francois Margolin’s must-see L’Opium des Talibans, shot on location in ravaged Afghanistan; U.K. director Mark Cousins’ Roman Polanski: Scene By Scene; and Marie Mandy’s anthology Desire: A Journey Through Women’s Films.

Commercial releases

Additional WFF entries with commercial distribution in Canada include Belgian director Marion Hansel’s Nuages (Les Films Seville), narrated by actress Catherine Deneuve; Albanian director Gjergi Xhuvani’s Slogans (Films Seville); Lebanese director Jean Chamoun’s L’Ombre de la ville (Cinema Libre); and Ferzan Ozpetek’s Le Fate Ignoranti/Ignorant Fairies (Remstar Distribution), an Italian/ France coproduction.

Also acquired for Canadian distribution, Rachid Bouchareb’s Little Senegal (Remstar), a French/German/Algerian coproduction; Catherine Corsini’s La Repetition (FunFilm Distribution), starring Emmanuelle Beart and Pascale Bussieres; controversial French director Catherine Breillat’s (Romance) latest feature A Ma Soeur (Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm); and Lebanese director Jean Chamoun’s L’Ombre de la ville (Cinema Libre).

Also on tap at WFF, three films from France: Gerald Calderon’s 70mm IMAX exploration Origine Ocean/Origins of Life (TVA International); Pascal Thomas’ Mercredi, Folle Journee (TVA International), produced by Thomas and Daniel Toscan du Plantier; and Patrice Chereau’s Intimacy, adapted from both the novel of the same name and the Hanif Kureishi short story Nightlife (TVA International).

Air Canada is official partner of the WFF and also presents the Air Canada Award for most popular film. Major private-sector sponsors include Visa Canada, AGF, Brasserie McAuslan, host of the ‘no-charge’ Saint-Ambriose Hospitality Suite, and Astral Media, sponsor of the Aug. 23 opening-night gala party at the Wyndham Hotel.

-www.ffm-montreal.org