La Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) is supporting 14 feature-length fiction projects through two of its programs.

Thirteen features are receiving assistance through SODEC’s production aid program, while one project is being supported by its emerging creation assistance program, which is positioned for Quebec prodcos developing projects with emerging creators.

Nine of the projects selected under the production aid program have a total budget equal to or greater than $3.5 million, with five categorized as youth and family films.

Among those projects is Rémi Fréchette’s Canada/Belgium coproduction Au rythme du cœur. The musical is produced by Quebec’s Possibles Média and Belgium’s Kozak Films and is distributed by Entract Films. Set in 1987, the film tells the story of a 20-year-old woman who convinces her aerobic dance troupe to enter a Brussels dance competition to keep her mother’s animal shelter from closing.

Richard Roy’s comedy-drama AX (Productions des Années lumière), distributed by Les Films Opale, tells the story of a young bike gang leader who is forced to decide whether he should betray his gang in order to get closer to his father.

Another youth and family feature is Hantée (A Média Films), directed by Rafaël Ouellet. The fantasy film is written by India Desjardins and distributed by Immina Films. The story follows a marginalized teen who discovers a 19th century ghost upon moving to her new house.

The animated feature Histoire de Fous (10e Ave Productions) is directed by Christine Dallaire-Dupont and Émilie Rosas, who also serves as writer, It accompanies an anxious puffin who must face her fears when a gull invades her archipelago. Maison 4:3 is the distributor.

Bachir Bensaddek’s Filmoption International-distributed La route de Chlifa (Les Productions Kinesis) rounds out the youth and family films. The drama, written by Bensaddek and Chloé Cinq-Mars, follows a Quebec teenager from Syria striving to reconnect with the childhood the Syrian war took from him.

Three more projects with budgets equal to or greater than $3.5 million are listed as dramas and include Pier-Philippe Chevigny’s coproduction Arsenal. The film is produced by Quebec’s Le Foyer Films and France’s TS Productions and written by Chevigny and Chloé Robichaud. It is set in 1990 and accompanies an English-speaking photographer documenting a queer party when it is raided by the police.

Pascal Plante’s Filles du Roy is another drama coproduction. It is produced by La maison de prod and Némésis Films alongside France’s Avenue B Productions and written by Plante and Dominique Dussault. The drama tells the story of the King’s Daughters (filles du roi) who were sent to New France, now Quebec, to boost the population of the colony.

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s Pauline Julien: Femme pays (Bravo Charlie) is the third drama selected. Written by Barbeau-Lavalette and Véronique Côté, the film tells the story of Quebec singer-songwriter Pauline Julien who suffered from degenerative aphasia. It is distributed by Axia Films.

The last of the projects with budgets equal to or greater than $3.5 million is Rachel Graton and Louis Morissette’s comedy Sortie de zone (KO24). It is written by Graton, Morissette and Jean-François Léger and distributed by Les Films Opale and KO Distribution. The film follows a 37-year-old woman burdened by work and life who, through the discovery of a woman’s garage hockey league, learns to make room for the playful, useless and unproductive.

There are four projects with a budget totaling under $3.5 million, starting with writer-director Ian Lagarde’s comedy-drama Ce qu’on respire sur Tatouine (Voyelle Films Productions). Distributed by Maison 4:3 and adapted from the novel by Jean-Christophe Réhel, the film follows the odyssey of a young poet afflicted with cystic fibrosis.

Writer-director Luiza Corcora’s drama Fake Empire (La maison de prod) follows a Ukrainian immigrant in Montreal who agrees to a marriage of convenience with a Romanian immigrant seeking permanent residency. H264 has distribution rights.

Next is writer-director Nicolas Krief’s Canada/France coproduction Le Prince (Couronne Nord, Srab Films). The drama, also distributed by H264, follows a son who discovers a dark side to his businessman father during a police search.

Last is Violence du corps de l’autre (Oiseau pas de S), written and directed by Denis Côté, and distributed by H264. The film follows a woman who travels and meets people with whom she has strange death pacts and who meets two free-spirited people living in the forest.

La fille du manguier (La 115e), a comedy-drama written and directed by Marilyn Cooke, is the sole project supported with a budget of less than $2.5 million via the emerging creation assistance program. Distributed by H264, the film follows a young mixed-race woman in 2041 who returns to Montreal to retrieve a scientific sample from a Caribbean island engulfed by the ocean only to have that sample be stolen amid the supernatural appearance of her Caribbean ancestors.

With files from Nicholas Sokic

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