Seven documentaries from Quebec and Canadian filmmakers have been selected for the Montreal International Documentary Festival’s (RIDM) National Feature Competition.

The documentaries include Archéologie de la lumière directed and produced by Sylvain L’Espérance. The film explores Minganie, a municipality in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec.

Other films in the competition include Parmi les montagnes et les ruisseaux, directed and produced by Jean-François Lesage and distributed by Les Films du 3 Mars. The film follows two exiled Chinese artists and their discussions about the regime they left behind and Billy, from director Lawrence Côté-Collins. The film, produced by Côté-Collins and Vuk Stojanovic, follows the former as she seeks to understand and forgive her schizophrenic attacker Billy, imprisoned for an attack that left two people dead.

Also competing is Le Plein potentiel (Metafilms), directed by Annie St-Pierre and distributed by Maison 4:3, which examines the world of life coaches; and Tout sur Margo (Les Mains sales Films), directed by Yann-Manuel Hernandez and Margaux Latour, which follows an actor as she goes through a period of personal and spiritual transformation.

Rounding out the competitors are two previously announced films including the Pablo Álvarez-Mesa-directed and produced documentary The Soldier’s Lagoon (La Laguna del Soldado; pictured), which retraces Simón Bolívar’s disastrous march across the Andes to liberate Colombia; and Intercepted (Les Films Cosmos, Hutong Productions, Moon Man), from Ukrainian-Canadian filmmaker Oksana Karpovych, which contrasts the everyday life of Ukrainians since the Russian invasion with intercepted phone calls between Russian soldiers and their families. The film is distributed by Les Films du 3 Mars.

Other official competitions at RIDM this year include New Visions, which is allowing international films for the first time; the inaugural Magnus Isacsson Competition, consisting of eight local filmmakers; and the International Feature Competition.

RIDM runs from Nov. 20 to Dec. 1.

Image courtesy of Pablo Alvarez-Mesa