Rope Around the Neck

Set in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business.

Forty-something Pierre is serving a fourteen year prison sentence. His mother, who is approaching eighty, visits him every week. Suzanne, Pierre's current wife, has moved on since he was sent away. Each character gives us a frank account of a period in their lives that seems suspended in time by the fragile connection between life on the inside and the world outside. Their destinies are linked by crime, guilt and loneliness, and like casualties of love and desire, they are dying to stick their heads above the water and breathe the air of life.

The nuns of a musical convent work hard in order to prevent the religious school from closing.

The conflicts between Jean, a penniless painter, and his brother Luc, a successful lawyer. Adapted from a novel by Réal Giguère, which revives the Thebiblical story of Cain and Abel. An interesting look at Quebec in the Sixties.

André and his sister Lucille come from a wealthy family. Both seem attached to Georges, be charismatic, exuberant, charming and self-centered. A vicious man who hates his life and seems to take pleasure in manipulating others in squalid perverse games.

A humanity student, Lucien is active in various extracurricular activities. Recognized by his peers, he represents other students in their challenge of college rules and the settlement of the fate of an incompetent professor. He ends up being thrown out of the school. After his mother's death, even though he dates Lise, a young woman with whom he does acting, he has to resist the advances of a homosexual whose death he will accidentally cause.

A group of actors putting on an interpretive Passion Play in Montreal begin to experience a meshing of their characters and their private lives as the production takes form against the growing opposition of the Catholic church.

After returning home from war, an ill-tempered young soldier must deal with his sweetheart having married another man.

A young photographer is entangled in a terrorist plot against a right wing politician in an election campaign.

The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.

The lives of two families in Montreal.

A photographer sets off toward a mysterious forest to find Boychuk, witness and victim of the Great Fire that swept through Northern Ontario at the turn of the 20th century. But before she arrives, she learns that Boychuck has just perished. Survivors of the long-ago fire, Tom and Charlie, two elderly men who have chosen to live out their last days in the woods, are introduced to Marie Desneige, whose 60 year institutionalization has only fueled her passion for life. Meanwhile, the photographer is discovering that Boychuck had been a painter, whose life’s work had been entirely inspired by the Great Fire. The story immerses us in a historical drama while captivating us with the strange lives of these men of the forest. Three men who, in choosing freedom above all else, made a deal with death.

Although he is something of a layabout, and is still living with his mother, her death comes as something of a shock to Louis Pelletier (Gilbert Sicotte). Still, he has hopes of some sort of legacy and believes that his relatives will help him find a job. All his hopes are dashed when, before the funeral, his three aunts come to Quebec City to settle their sister's estate. As grasping and efficient a crew as ever strode a parlor, by the time they leave, the estate has been cleaned to the bones, as if by vultures.

A young woman, living with her parents and siblings on a remote farm in harsh, picturesque northern Québec, has three suitors: a steady and unimaginative farmer, Eutrope, the Americanized and wealthy Lorenzo, who has sought his fortune in Boston, and François Paradis, a rough and virile logger who captures her heart despite the warnings of her parents and the village priest. For a year, marked by seasonal change in an atmosphere charged with the strangeness of Indians and the demons of the woods, we see Maria at work and prayer, struggling with decisions, choosing to stay in Canada, in love with François, seeking to change his rough behaviors, and dealing with extraordinary loss.

Twenty-four year old Montréaler Caroline works as a sales representative for a telephone company. She's married to Claude, the two who have a young son. On their fourth wedding anniversary, about which Claude seems to have forgot or doesn't care, Caroline seems unhappy with her life, although she approaches it with a certain efficiency. When she was growing up, she, like any girl, had several ideas which changed all the time of what she wanted to do with her life when she grew up. But her life hasn't seemed to come close to any of those dreams. Can Claude or anyone else reassure Caroline about her life, especially on this milestone?

The lives of a businessman and his family begin to spiral downward after he has an affair at an insurance convention.

A young boy still recovering from his mother's recent death teams with his two best friends to turn a regular pooch into a stunt-performing super-dog in this affectionate comedy for the whole family. Losing a parent is never easy, but for 11 year old Daniel it's been especially hard; when his father dives into work in an attempt to keep his grief at bay, Daniel starts causing mischief around the neighborhood with his best friends William and Colin. When the kids catch wind of a canine.

A doctor living in a small mining town discovers that his dissatisfied young wife is having an affair with a truck driver.

Saskatchewan, Canada, late 19th century. The negligence of Dan Candy, sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, allows Almighty Voice, a young Cree warrior, to escape.

A woman learns secrets about her family while attending the funeral of her father.

A woman's peculiar religious convictions lead her on a self-destructive path.

Valerie leaves behind her life at a convent for the wild side of life. Getting a job as a topless dancer, Valerie quickly graduates to becoming a high-class hooker. After amassing a small fortune, she falls in love with an artist, a man who is more-than-willing to overlook Valerie's sordid past.

A 30-year old man is forced out of his inert and absent-minded existence when it's complicated by the three women in his life.

The melodramatic story of a widow, Marie Paradis, as she becomes an elderly dependant. Taking charge is her daughter-in-law, the cruel and stingy Céleste. Marie answers to all the stereotypes of the traditional mother: she's generous, loving.

A woman's marriage is in crisis as a result of her difficult and complex relationship with her mother.

After receiving a large inheritance, a young man movies from his family's ancestral grounds to the city and work in a printing house. Shortly after, he discovers that he is not the sole inheritor. The other, a drug addict going by the name of Mister Jean, will try by all means to grab the entire inheritance.

In Caro papá, Dino Risi is telling the story of the decadent lifestyle, and dysfunctional family, of a wealthy businessman (played to perfection by Risi's favorite leading man, Vittorio Gassman). Risi paints his portrait against a backdrop of an Italy where the new permissiveness has run rampant, traditional socio-cultural values have been usurped by consumerism, and the streets have become an open battleground for politically extremist groups (the '70s were dubbed "The Years of Lead" due to the great number of terrorist acts, and politically motivated assassinations).

Two bored Montreal housewives (Monique Mercure & Louise Turcot), with inattentive husbands (Marcel Sabourin & Donald Pilon), and lots of time on their hands, amuse themselves by paying the local tradesmen something extra to give them amorous attention. Their entertainment leads to frantic confusion, however, when one of the visiting gentlemen - shall we say - 'expires'. The housewives deal with their unpleasant situation quite energetically.

A young pilot witnesses the unintentional murder of her two sons (by a rich, drunken couple driving carelessly) and, following a court's decision not to press criminal charges, she decides to get her revenge.

When his friend suddenly commits suicide, reporter Paul senses something strange about it. When he starts investigating, a series of sinister events leads him to a deadly Satanic cult.