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12/3/2013

Canadian Front 2013

The Museum of Modern Art - MoMA, New York

The 10th annual edition of Canadian Front presents New York premieres of recent Canadian narrative and documentary feature films from both English- and French-speaking Canada. This year's festival includes Filmmaker in Focus: Xavier Dolan, a three-film salute to the Québécois actor and filmmaker, including a weeklong run of his acclaimed 2009 film I Killed My Mother.

Related Film Screenings

Krivina. 2012. Canada/Bosnia/Herzegovina. Directed by Igor Drljača
Krivina

2012. Canada/Bosnia/Herzegovina. Directed by Igor Drljača. Krivina traces the journey of Miro, a Bosnian immigrant who fled to Toronto during the conflict in former Yugoslavia. Upon hearing that Dado, an old friend long gone missing, is wanted for war crimes, Miro returns to Sarajevo in search of him. Neighbors and family provide conflicting clues about Dado's whereabouts—has it been 18 years or just a month since he was last seen?—but all speak to the way the man was deeply affected by the war. While director Drljača draws on his own experience (he emigrated to Canada in 1993 because of the strife), Krivina takes on a universal quality, as the disjointed narrative of Dado's fate mirrors a fractured nation in mourning. Set against the vast, haunting landscape of the Bosnian countryside, Drljača's feature debut is a finely crafted, quietly poetic meditation on collective trauma and the weight of memory. 70 min.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 4:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Saturday, March 16, 2013, 5:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Film Screenings & Events
Molly Maxwell. 2012. Canada. Directed by Sara St. Onge
Molly Maxwell

2012. Canada. Directed by Sara St. Onge. At Phoenix Progressive School, students take notes lying on parlor couches and are encouraged to explore their gifts through electives like break-dancing and graphic-novel writing. In the midst of all this liberal pedagogy and budding talent, Molly Maxwell feels unexceptional, until she embarks on a photography independent study under the tutelage of her attractive English teacher, Ben. Their relationship quickly evolves beyond the darkroom, introducing Molly to the throes of a first love, and putting Ben’s job in jeopardy. With revelatory performances and a rousing indie-rock soundtrack, St Onge’s directorial debut pairs a classic coming-of-age story with a slyly comedic portrayal of alternative arts education. 91 min.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 7:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Saturday, March 16, 2013, 8:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Film Screenings & Events
J’ai tué ma mere. 2009. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan
J'ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother)

2009. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan. Dolan wrote, directed, and stars in this semi-autobiographical chronicle of the tumultuous rapport between 16-year-old Hubert and his mother (Anne Dorval). Hubert holds his mother in endless contempt—she is outdated and kitsch, she misunderstands him—and seeks refuge in art classes and his boyfriend, Antonin. From slammed doors to embraces, Dolan and Dorval masterfully capture the raw, love-hate intensity of filial relationships that eats away at mother and son. A hit at New Directors/New Films 2010, this never-released gem returns to MoMA for a weeklong run. 96 min.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 7:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Thursday, March 14, 2013, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Friday, March 15, 2013, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Saturday, March 16, 2013, 7:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Sunday, March 17, 2013, 5:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Monday, March 18, 2013, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2

Film Screenings & Events
Before My Heart Falls. 2012. Canada. Directed by Sebastien Rose
Avant que mon coeur bascule (Before My Heart Falls)

2012. Canada. Directed by Sébastien Rose. Sixteen-year old Sarah is part of a petty crime circuit, robbing gas stations and duping good Samaritans who stop to pick up the young, distressed girl on the side of the highway—until one of her ploys results in the death of her victim. Haunted by the accident, she seeks out the man's widow and clumsily forges a rapport with her, without ever revealing her role in his death. Meanwhile, Sarah's abusive handler doesn't look kindly on her revisiting the scene of the crime. Rose's drama-filled fourth feature culminates in moments where empathy and love are manifest—even though communication, relationships, and youth itself are broken. In French; English subtitles. 96 min.

Thursday, March 14, 2013, 4:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Sunday, March 17, 2013, 2:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Film Screenings & Events
The Meteor. 2013. Canada. Directed by Francois Delisle
Le météore (The Meteor)

2013. Canada. Directed by Francois Delisle. The story begins with an accident and ends with a funeral. In between, the film follows Pierre, who is carrying out a jail sentence for a hit and run, his aging mother, and his ex-wife. The characters’ confessional monologues are related via their disembodied voices over prolonged shots of the subjects, but also of anonymous condo buildings, shadows dancing on wooden floorboards, a treescape in the winter, and the tide breaking on the rocks. This imagery at times affirms the words being said, and at others acts as an abstract backdrop for Pierre's descriptions of the drudgery of prison, or for the women's accounts of their attempts to restore normalcy to their lives since Pierre's incarceration. The distance created is akin to the Plexiglass barriers in prison visiting rooms, and it heightens the sincere portrayal of difficult emotion. 85 min.

Thursday, March 14, 2013, 8:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1
Saturday, March 16, 2013, 2:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Film Screenings & Events
Blackbird. 2012. Canada. Directed by Jason Buxton
Blackbird

2012. Canada. Directed by Jason Buxton. In his small-town high school, Sean Randall is a solitary goth with a bent for Kafka and heavy metal. His only friend is the popular Deanna, who rides the same school bus. At night, they secretly exchange instant messages—until Deanna’s hockey-player boyfriend gets wind of the friendship and threateningly confronts Sean. In retaliation, Sean posts a menacing message online. In the wake of Columbine, the blog post is sufficient grounds for a raid on his house, and his father’s collection of unregistered hunting rifles cement the narrative that Sean was plotting a mass murder. The film follows Sean from handcuffs to courtroom to prison, through a nightmarish system that equates reprehensible yet rash words with actual violent crimes, and teenage alienation with psychopathic premeditation. Buxton’s thought-provoking feature debut resonates with current debates over gun control and juvenile justice, and paints an alarming picture of our culture of fear. 103 min.

Friday, March 15, 2013, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Monday, March 18, 2013, 8:00 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Film Screenings & Events
Laurence Anyways. 2012. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan
Laurence Anyways

2012. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan. Dolan's third feature is the vivid, highly orchestrated saga of Laurence and Fred, a bohemian couple living in Montreal. Their electric relationship is tested when Laurence confesses he is a woman trapped in a man's body. While Fred initially supports her partner's transformation, she succumbs to family and societal pressures and ends the affair. What ensues is the decade-long drama of a couple that cannot live together or survive apart. Laurence Anyways is the first of Dolan's films in which the director does not act. Rather, he focuses on guiding Melvil Poupaud, Suzanne Clément, Nathalie Baye, and Monia Chokri (some of whom appear in his first two films) in stunning performances that propel the gritty, textured storytelling that has become his signature. This searing meditation on gender, love, and self-fulfillment establishes Dolan as one of today's most exciting young auteurs. 161 min.

Sunday, March 17, 2013, 5:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Film Screenings & Events
Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats). 2010. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan
Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats)

2010. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan. Best friends Francis and Marie are inseparable—until they both fall for Nicholas, a handsome newcomer. As the trio spends their days and nights together, the two friends passive-aggressively vie for Nicholas’s attention and analyze his every gesture. Heartbeats establishes Dolan’s visual lexicon, with highly stylized slow-motion scenes and riffs on a generation of classic cool; Marie is a doe-eyed, cigarette-poised Audrey Hepburn, and Francis, who keeps a stick-figure tally of his misfortunes in romance, is a melancholy James Dean. Humorous and heartbreaking, the emotional three-way is a contemporary update on Jules and Jim, with all the neuroses of the 21st century. 101 min.

Monday, March 18, 2013, 4:30 p.m., Theater 1, T1

Film Screenings & Events
J'ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother). 2009. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan
An Evening with Xavier Dolan

Since his 2009 feature debut, J’ai tué ma mere, which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in, Xavier Dolan (Canadian, b. 1989) has been acclaimed as the wunderkind of Canadian cinema. Dolan’s films investigate the grit and passion of contemporary relationships against the backdrop of urban life, often in Dolan’s hometown of Montreal. In conjunction with Canadian Front 2013, Dolan joins Rajendra Roy and Indiewire's Peter Knegt to discuss past work and filmic inspirations, and to present an excerpt from his current project, Tom à la ferme.

Monday, March 18, 2013, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2

Image: Laurence Anyways. 2012. Canada. Directed by Xavier Dolan

The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019

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