Film Screenings / Programs / Series
QUÉBEC DIRECT CINEMA
May 5 – May 17
MARCEL CARRIÈRE AND CAROL FAUCHER IN PERSON!
This extensive series will survey the enormously influential documentary filmmaking movement that emerged in Québec in the 1950s and 60s, concurrent with the cinema vérité movement in France and the appearance of filmmakers like Robert Drew, the Maysles, and Ricky Leacock in the U.S. A host of filmmakers – including Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault, Gilles Groulx, Marcel Carrière, Claude Fournier, Bernard Gosselin, and others – developed and utilized new camera and sound technologies to make documentary films whose spontaneity, vitality, and formal innovations are still remarkable. Abandoning the carefully composed, often scripted approach of earlier documentary films – in which reality was kept at a safe distance, filtered via narration and controlled through rehearsal or even staging – these filmmakers used the new technologies to throw themselves into the worlds they documented, and to respond in the moment to the rhythms and textures of lived experience.
Relative to their U.S. and French counterparts, and despite their proximity, these Québecois filmmakers are relatively under-recognized here in the United States. In order to redress this, Anthology, in partnership with the Québec Government Office in New York and the National Film Board of Canada, will be presenting 17 programs devoted to the Québec Direct Cinema movement. Featuring more than 30 films – many of them very rarely screened in the U.S. – and graced by appearances from filmmaker Marcel Carrière and scholar and curator Carol Faucher, this series represents an opportunity to explore one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of documentary cinema, and to gain great insight into the people, politics, and society of Québec from the 1950s to the early 1980s.
This series is presented in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada and with invaluable support from the Québec Government Office in New York. Curated by Carol Faucher.
Marcel Carrière and Carol Faucher will be here in person for opening weekend, Friday, May 6 to Sunday, May 8; visit anthologyfilmarchives.org for more details.
Special thanks to Carol Faucher; Marcel Carrière; Jean-Pierre Dion & Caroline Dufresne (Québec Government Office in New York); James Roberts & Johanne St-Amant (National Film Board); Marie-Pierre Lessard (Cinémathèque québécoise); Jason Cheong (TIFF); and Kitty Cleary (MoMA).
