A Hospital Crucified

Le 2 mars 2004, le gouvernement conservateur de M. Bernard Lord annonce que l'hôpital de Caraquet sera transformé en un Centre de santé communautaire. La population de la région se mobilise et s'oppose à des décisions gouvernementales qu'elle trouve injustes. Pendant un an et demi, les citoyens luttent pour garder chez eux les services de soins de santé auxquels ils ont droit. Tout en documentant la chronologie des faits qui ont mené à la fermeture de l'hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus de Caraquet, au Nouveau-Brunswick, Renée Blanchar a réalisé, au coeur de l'action et dans l'urgence de témoigner, un film sur la solidarité humaine.

Most of us are born in hospitals, and most of us will die there too. But hospitals remain sprawling, mysterious places - sources of dread and fear that remind us of our own mortality. While media reports concentrate on miracles and highly trained specialists. Hospital City shifts the focus away from high-profile doctors and introduces us to people no less essential - the workers, without whom no hospital could function. Shot at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's, Newfoundland, this documentary reveals the workings of a contemporary health-care facility. Accompanied by hospital staff, we travel through miles of corridors, labs, pharmacies, supply rooms, operating theatres, and patient rooms - from the maternity ward to the morgue. As debate in Canada rages over funding cuts and a health-care system said to be in crisis, Hospital City is a moving, human portrait of the people whom the debates most closely touch.

Acadia is a changing society at a crossroads. With citizens increasingly feeling abandoned by politicians, do artists have a role to play in society? Rooted firmly in the present while drawing lessons from the past, A Place That Matters follows its subjects as they reimagine life in their community through a series of collective initiatives. The documentary takes us to Sainte-Anne-du-Bocage, a neighbourhood of Caraquet, New Brunswick, and home to a once-thriving Youth Club-an abandoned cultural and community space that also belongs to the historical legacy of Acadie's first architect, Nazaire Dugas. Purchased a few years ago by writer France Daigle, and now undergoing renovation, the hall has become the rallying point for a group of Acadian artists and friends who want to resurrect the original spirit of this place. As Daigle restores the run-down roadside building, musician René Cormier and theatre artist Allain Roy prepare for its grand opening show. Throughout all this, filmmaker Renée Blanchar films the project's progress while helping to create a community garden. For everyone involved, it's about staying true to a form of social engagement and resilience. Drawing on intimate personal stories, the filmmaker gradually sketches a complex shared history. As the story of the fathers intertwines with that of the sons and daughters, we are invited to contemplate the importance of passing on memories, be it through kinship or art. Through their hands-on community-building projects, the artists and citizens in A Place That Matters resolutely open the door to other ways of being together.