NEWS
Montréal, Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - The 12th edition of the RIDM (Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal) will take place from November 11 to 21, 2009. The RIDM has created a mouth-watering program that takes the pulse of today's world with more than 100 films from 35 countries. With actor Antoine Bertrand as the spokesperson for the 12th edition, the RIDM stands out more than ever as a place for encounters, discussions and reflection on the social, political and environmental challenges that threaten our world. A must attend event on the Montreal cultural scene, it is a privileged place for the discovery of documentary film and its creators.
The RIDM dedicates their 12th edition to Allan King, one of the pioneers of direct cinema in Canada, who died on June 15 following a brain tumour. The public can rediscover or discover A Married Couple, a landmark work from 1968 that, well before Scènes de la vie conjugale from Bergman, captured the decisive moments of a marriage in crisis in the Toronto suburbs.
The film Last Train Home, from Montreal director Lixin Fan, will kick start the RIDM on November 11. Produced by EyeSteelFilm, Last Train Home is a lyrical and revealing work that shows us the individual destinies hidden behind the famous "Made in China" label. A poignant film about families torn apart, it sheds light on all the contradictions of China, between galloping economic growth and human exploitation. Closing the 12th edition of the festival is October Country (United States), from filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher. This time we follow an American family where life is so devoid of good fortune it becomes supernatural. Using Halloween as a backdrop and with unique and delicate photography, the young filmmakers cast a look full of tenderness and humour on these fabulous haunted characters and their family demons.
The four sections of the official selection return this year to reflect on the actual preoccupations facing the world and the diverse faces of the documentary cinema world.
Camera-stylo offers a selection of films that stand out for the distinctive approach of each director and the personal quality of the writing, and this year it puts local filmmaking in the spotlight, with eleven titles from Quebec and Canada, proving the vitality and creativity of local production. Among our great filmmakers we find notably, Céline Barril, who directed The Theory of Everything, an impressionist collage on Quebec, its spaces and inhabitants; Lucie Lambert, with a magnificent portrait of two Innu women (Aimer, finir); Sylvain L'Espérance, who offers his third film filmed in Africa (Intérieurs du delta); Jean-François Caissy, who films soberly and magnificently on daily life in a Seniors home in the Gaspésie (La belle visite); John Walker, who mixes fictionalized reconstructions and documentary to deliver a passionate investigation into the British Navy and the Inuit (Passage); and Don McWilliams, who presents a personal and sumptuous vision of a sad episode in Kenya (A Time There Was). From the international side, we find the big names in recent documentary production: War+Love in Kabul by Helga Reidemeister, a superb Romeo and Juliette story in Afghanistan, Oblivion by Heddy Honigmann, a unique and distressing portrait of the real face of Peru, The Sound of Insects - Records of a Mummy by Peter Liechti, a sensory illustration made by impressionist touches of the last days of a suicidal man, and the most recent films of Wang Bing (L'argent du charbon), Claudio Pazienza (Archipels nitrate) and Sergeï Loznitsa (Lumière du Nord).
The films in Camera at the Ready explore in depth the socio-political issues of our constantly changing world. These films look at a wide range of issues: the Burmese dictatorship in two films at once (Burma VJ by Anders Østergaard and Birmanie l'indomptable, la résistance d'un peuple by Helène Magny and Pierre Mignault), along with the extortions committed by Coca-Cola with The Coca-Cola Case, the latest film from Carmen Garcia and Germán Gutiérrez. From the absurdly repressive justice system in Colombia (Bagatela); to the contested use of the Holocaust by Israel, in the cheeky and provocative Defamation, to the troubling portrait of the academic Norman Finkelstein, American Radical (Norman Finkelstein will be in attendance). From the Albanian code of vengeance (Kanun - The Law of Honour) to the question of wearing the veil in Québec (Je porte le voile). From the inequalities between men and women in the Occident (Male Domination) and current society in the Balkans, in a road movie reminding us of Chris Marker (Goodbye, How Are You?). Our urban realities aren't forgotten: Invisible City by Hubert Davis chronicles the daily life in the disaffected Regent Park neighbourhood in Toronto, and L'art en action by Simon Bujold and Magnus Isacsson presents a portrait of the two founders of the Socially Acceptable Terrorist Action. Finally, the RIDM presents two important North American premieres: Pétition - La cour des plaignants (Petition), in competition at Cannes, an exceptional look at the situation of those awaiting justice in China and Plomb durci (Cast Lead), Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival, an overwhelming tableau on the consequences of war in Gaza.
In collaboration with UQAM's Cœur des sciences and the Institut des sciences de l'environnement, the EcoCamera section tackles major scientific and environmental challenges. Among the selection we find Quebec films that examine reality closely: Pax Americana, the opening film of the section, looks at the militarization of space, H2Oil attacks the famous bitumen sand problem in Alberta, Le chêne et le roseau reflects on the agricultural future of Quebec and Kitakinan is a beautiful ode to the boreal forest and aboriginal heritage. From international filmmakers, we'll see the much talked about film Bananas!*, on toxic banana plantations in Nicaragua, and that the company Dole tried to forbid; Katanga Business, on the exploitation of mines in the Congo, notably by companies in Canada; Les damnés de la mer, on the great tragedy of overfishing in the seas of Morocco; Déchets, le cauchemar du nucléaire and R.A.S. Nucléaire - Rien à signaler, which examine the numerous noxious nuclear effects; and the very amusing and scary Orgasm Inc., on the pharmaceutical industry and the female orgasm.
Finally, the section that's the icing on the cake, DocTape, returns for a second year. Gathering together atypical and marginal works, from punk to pop, subversion to amusement, this section lets us travel to the documentary cinema of tomorrow. It unites the world champions of the video game Warcraft III (Beyond the Game), a Warhol of the web (We Live in Public), the colourful writer Dany Laferrière (La dérive douce d'un enfant de Petit-Goâve), a Czech delinquent (René), a young Romanian girl affected by Borat's visit to her village (Carmen Meets Borat), rabbits in Berlin (Rabbit à la Berlin), small out of the ordinary Montreal business owners (Small Wonders) and inspired and inspiring cooks (Cooking History). Music lovers will be taken by the Jamaican rhythms in RiseUp, the electric guitars in Les murs du son and the aboriginal voices of Chants de la détermiNATION. And for those who like to flirt with taboos, they should attend the very sexy Stretch Marks and Stalags: Holocaust and Pornography in Israël, or Episode III: Enjoy Poverty, the most perturbing title of the 12th edition.
New discoveries are always honoured at RIDM: this year there are twenty international first films and twelve Canadian and Quebec first films found throughout the four sections of the official selection, in competition for the First Camera Award and the Best Hope Award for Quebec/Canada.
Also, in an effort to expand their reach outside of Montreal, the RIDM, in collaboration with the Musée de la civilisation, will return to Quebec City from November 11 to 15, for a 5th consecutive year, to present a selection of documentary films.
Venues for the 12th RIDM are the Cinémathèque Québécoise, NFB Cinema, Cinéma Parallèle, Agora Hydro-Quebec at UQÀM's Cœur des Sciences Building, Grande Bibliothèque, Segal Centre for Performing Arts, Concordia University (Cinema Politica) and the Goethe Institute.
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