Absences

L'absence est une déchirure, un manque. Elle est souvent synonyme de quête et peut revêtir différentes formes, même si on l'associe généralement aux liens familiaux ou amoureux. Comme dans le plus récent film de Carole Laganière, Absences, qui la décline en plusieurs temps. À l'origine du projet, il y a le drame intime de la réalisatrice qui voit sa mère, atteinte de la maladie d'Alzheimer, s'éloigner d'elle à mesure que la mémoire s'efface. Cette appréhension d'une séparation à venir sert de lien avec d'autres êtres que la caméra suit en divers lieux, ici et à l'étranger. Il y a là Ines, une immigrante qui revient en Croatie, son pays d'origine; Deni, un écrivain américain lancé sur les traces de ses racines québécoises, et Nathalie, qui recherche sa sœur disparue. En réunissant ces protagonistes filmés dans leur quête personnelle, la cinéaste ? qui aussi réalisé Vues de l'Est ? explore des territoires intérieurs douloureux où le sentiment de perte côtoie la résilience. Tissant subtilement ses liens, le film est une chaîne de vie qui se construit sur le manque. Un manque à combler, à l'image du vide virginal des chambres d'hôtels toujours prêtes à accueillir les tourments d'une humanité en transit. Absences est une œuvre à plusieurs voix qui a l'infinie délicatesse des émotions humaines.

Ghyslain Raza was 15 years old in 2003, when his two minutes of fame would make him "patient zero" of web virality. He'd filmed himself letting it all hang out in a fixed-shot video. An amateur video. Overnight, it was made public by other students and downloaded millions of times - long before social media came onto the scene. Suddenly, "sharing" became synonymous with meanness, intimidation, and a mob mentality. Unwittingly, Raza became the "Star Wars Kid." Now, South Park and Family Guy were making references to the teen from Trois-Rivières behind the most famous meme in history. Over the next two decades, Ghyslain built - or, rather, rebuilt - his life away from the camera. Today, he is a man with a keen emotional intelligence, and a doctoral student in law. The world has changed since 2003, largely thanks to the rise of social media, the commercialization of personal data, and the relentless memory of the web, which could come back to haunt us at any time. It's a potent fear, and one that leads to questions on the right to control one's own image, and, above all, the right to be forgotten. Directed by Mathieu Fournier and shot in Trois-Rivières, New York and Portland this intimate documentary tells the story of the first viral phenomenon of the digital age. In the film, Ghyslain Raza breaks his silence, reflecting publicly for the first time on his story in conversation with other participants. Through his story, we explore our own shared experience, living in an online world hungry for content and ruled by the famous sentiment expressed in the John Ford film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." It's a line which begs the response, "Yes, but at what price?".

In an age of social media, when the boundaries between private and public are constantly being redrawn, 50 people share some of their most intimate experiences and thoughts on camera. Self(less) Portrait by Danic Champoux (Mom and Me, Sessions) offers a complex patchwork of intertwining themes, ultimately reflecting a collective spirit we can all identify with. Taken as a whole, these confessions-sometimes sombre, sometimes comical-compose a rich but disjointed plotline, a human mosaic that slowly takes shape in front of our very eyes, telling a story: our story. Relationships, the search for identity, family violence, depression, suicide, sexuality, mental illness, aliens, religion and death: all these themes come and go on screen like an inexhaustible chain of life. Thanks to the unique voice of each participant, the filmmaker is able to construct a self-reflective ensemble film that vibrates like a symphony dedicated to the human condition. With its intriguing title and idiosyncratic editing style, the film reveals as much about others as it does about the filmmaker himself: an author fascinated by the preciousness of life. Self(less) Portrait is an atypical, free-form work that breathes new life into the documentary genre, serving as a compendium of raw emotions.