Quote:
Bernard Émond is a veteran documentary filmmaker whose powerful work tends to address themes of loss, memory and the possibility of capturing fragments of truth. La femme qui boit, his stylish and finely acted debut narrative feature, is distinguished by a spectacular performance from Élise Guilbault in the title role and depicts the pain and confusion of a woman’s ruin after years of alcohol abuse.Read More »
Doctor Rainville, an old country doctor who has a deep attachment to his patients, is about to retire and is looking for a successor. Jeanne Dion, an emergency doctor from Montréal, agrees to come to Normétal to replace him for a few weeks, without considering staying any longer than necessary in the remote Quebéc village. Normétal is a town in decline whose only large employer, a mine, closed three decades ago. Life is hard there, and a doctor’s relationship with his patients is much closer than Jeanne is used to after her experience in a large hospital’s emergency ward. When the old doctor dies, Jeanne must decide whether to stay and accept a responsibility that comes with much more commitment than she had planned on.Read More »
Based on Chekhov’s revered novella, The Diary of an Old Man centers on a terminally ill emeritus professor of medicine who realizes how powerless he is to cure the unhappiness of his adopted daughter, whom he loves above all else.Read More »
Quote:
Pierre Leduc leaves his job as a university lecturer in an effort to escape the world, only to have his plans thwarted as two family members reach out to him: first, his dying father, who wants to leave him a fortune of ill-gotten gains, and then the young daughter whom he abandoned years ago.
Québécois cinema has often explored the bonds that keep us together, but rarely has the subject been addressed so elegantly or so powerfully. An obsessed scholar attempts to withdraw from the world but finds personal ties drawing him back into the family he had left behind, in this novelistic, beautifully modulated drama from acclaimed Québécois filmmaker Bernard Émond. Tout ce que tu possèdes is characterized by a meditative style, a novelist’s eye for detail and startlingly beautiful grace notes. @TiffRead More »