Québékoisie

Poster for Québékoisie

Autumn 2014 Special Presentations series

Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at 8:30pm

Acadia Cinema's Al Whittle Theatre
450 Main Street, Wolfville, NS

Directed by Mélanie Carrier and Olivier Higgins

Screenplay by Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier

Starring Marco Bacon, Isabelle Kanapé, and Serge Bouchard

Rated NR · 1h 20m
Canada
French

View trailer

Québékoisie

In an arrangement with the filmmakers, Mélanie Carrier and Olivier Higgins of MÖ FILMS  and their distributor, David Chouinard at Vidéographe, an artist-run centre based in Montréal, area viewers will have another opportunity to view this multi-award-winning documentary.  Fundy Film, in conjunction with University’s 2nd Annual Aboriginal Arts & Literature Mawio’mi, will screen Québékoisie at the Al Whittle Theatre. Admission is pay what you can. After expenses, all donations will go to the Loretta Saunders Scholarship Fund.

They had to go to the other side of the planet, specifically Tibet, to realize it. Canadian filmmakers Mélanie Carrier and Olivier Higgins (Asiemut) are a pair of active thirty-somethings with friends all over the world, but they did not know what to call the people who have always lived in their home, Québéc. Why are so many Québékers so ignorant of the First Nations, even though studies show that more than half of them have at least one aboriginal ancestor? Why are clichés and prejudices so persistent? How can the situation be improved?

By getting on their bikes and heading out along the North Shore of the St. Lawrence, where they meet all kinds of people (both spontaneously and not), the two young people try to get a firmer grasp on relations between Québéc’s aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples.

Québékoisie was awarded the Prix Magnus Isacsson at the Montréal International Documentary Festival in 2013 and nominated for the 2014 Jutra Award for Best Documentary. Further awards include: “Grand Prize- Best Featured Documentary” Rhode Island international film festival (USA),”Best of Fest”, Wakefield International film festival (Canada),“Best Featured Documentary” DreamSpeaker film festival (Canada),“People Choice Award” Vues sur Mer documentary film festival (Canada) and “Best Humanitary doc” Vues sur Mer documentary film festival (Canada).

“This is a topic that could be deadly if treated in a serious fashion by old-school filmmakers, but Carrier and Higgins keep a light tone, while driving home some game-changing points. The timing couldn’t be better for this film. In the end, this is a documentary making a plea for a more open, more diverse society where we’re all proud of our heritage and happy to showcase our differences.” (Brendan Kelly, Montréal Gazette)