Facets Film School: FILMS FROM QUEBEC - Vive le Cinema Libre! July 22, 2008

"...a too-little-known and truly original body of work."
-Fredric Jameson, Duke University

Movies are cultural vehicles and culture is a mirror that reflects conditions contingent upon historical happenstance; so is it any wonder that the Quebec film industry is consistently thriving? It has been 400 years since explorer Samuel de Champlain founded this distinct society on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Since that time, the French of North America have continued to exuberantly mark their territory in a variety of arenas, ranging from the popularity of Céline Dion to the Cirque du Soleil's reinvention of the Big Top. This course will be a survey of the films that showcase the formative years of Quebec's coming of age, beginning in rural times then in fast forward through the 1960's revolution, when Montreal's underclass brought a radical fervor to the forefront. Bombings, kidnappings and other means of protest, lead to a period of intense inquiry which brought about profound changes in the artistic landscape. These stories are told in a unique voice, at once ironic, eerie, and ribald. Quebec movies, as you will see, are as fiercely nationalistic as they are universal.

Born and raised in La Belle province, Aimée Laberge is the author of Where the River Narrows, a novel charting the lives of three generations of women in Quebec, and Les Amants de Mort-Bois, a récit about children lost in the forest during a snowstorm. A Tennessee Williams Scholar from the Sewanee Writers Conference and twice alumni from the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, Ms Laberge was an art director in the field of broadcast television in Montreal, Toronto and London, England, before moving to Chicago.

Class meets every Tuesday from 7-10 PM. The costs is $90 for Facets members, $125 for non-members.

Official Website: http://www.facets.org/asticat?function=web&catname=facets&web=cinematheque&path=/filmschool