The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) has named its opening and closing films for this year, with the Quebec premiere of Peter Mettler’s The End of Time (pictured) kicking off proceedings on Nov. 7.

The film sees the Canadian filmmaker embarking on “a scientific, poetic and profoundly human odyssey into the very idea of time,” according to the film’s billing. It played at TIFF in Toronto last month, where it was acquired by a number of distributors.

The doc is produced by Maximage, Grimthorpe and the National Film Board of Canada, and distributed in Quebec by Métropole Films, with a theatrical release set for December 12.

Meanwhile, Raymond Depardon’s Journal de France will be the festival’s closing doc. The film, co-directed by Depardon’s long-time spouse and collaborator Claudine Nougaret, looks back on Depardon’s filmmaking career, and sees Nougaret open up the couple’s personal records, revisiting her partner’s artistic life through previously unseen footage from many of his films.

The doc is distributed by FunFilm and will have its North American première at the festival’s closing ceremony and awards presentation on Nov. 17 at the Grande Bibliothèque. A theatrical release is scheduled for next spring.

The 15th RIDM will take place from Nov. 7 to 18 in Montreal at the Cinémathèque québécoise, Cinéma Excentris, the Grande Bibliothèque, Concordia University and Centre Phi.