Laurence Olivier

It is a small village somewhere in Quebec with only 215 inhabitants. When young Simon Dubé dies in a car accident, the villagers’ tranquil and regulated existence is thrown out of step. People are decidedly reluctant to talk about the accident. Time seems to lose all meaning. Snowy, frosty winter days stretch out into infinity. Mysterious figures emerge from the fog and commit strange acts. But what seems strange is sometimes more familiar than one might suspect.

Tattooed hands gently glide over a rock face, probing it with the tips of the fingers. Three women, arms raised to a high boulder, appear to be in prayer. Hidden in a cave, two others stare at their bloody palms. Touching Rocks depicts bouldering as a pagan ritual.

A young woman finds herself spiraling after the death of her father.

9 year-old Sarah is quietly discovering love when an assault derails her sexual awakening. Summer 2000 is an intimate and delicate tale in which the play between different mediums offers an insight into gender performativity and consent.

In a strange and haunted setting, verses are lost, like an echo that nobody can seem to hear. The grainy, blurry images shot with the Super 8 camera and a soundtrack seeming to come from the far ends of the universe give the words of Laurence Olivier the feeling of some alien poem. As if the Other – ghosts or beings from another world – could also be transported by love and loss, by the impoverishment of the imagination and the transience of the material world. The invisible presence of ghosts seems to have found a witness here.

On a freezing winter night, in an small, isolated village, masked figures prowl. The monsters lurk by the houses, knock on doors. You let these strangers into your home. They remain silent. They observe you. With Veiled Intent, a documentary horror film, or maybe an experimental fable, brings to life an endangered tradition: Mi-Carême (Mid-Lent), as it is celebrated in Natashquan. Welcome to the monster ball.