Claude Jutra

For the Record, an anthology of 60-to-90-minute dramas, started on the series, Performance, as a subseries called Camera ’76. A collection of docudrama-style short stories on diverse but socially relevant (and very Canadian) topics such as unemployment, euthanasia, spousal abuse, televangelists, aboriginal issues, and anglophone-francophone relations. This series attracted most of the 'big name' Canadian actors and directors of the time.

A film about the history and fate of the Metis rebel leader who opposed the Canadian government in two seperate rebellions.

Angie and Helen are in love. They live and work together designing women's evening wear in Vancouver. When Helen decides she wants to have a baby, the pair set out to find a suitable sperm donor.

An experimental movie based on a poem of the French writer and director Jean Cocteau about a servant who fantasises about killing the lady of the house.

Following her father's puzzling disappearance, Kate and her city-bred companions brave the untamed backwoods in a desperate search for him. However, the harsh environment becomes a dangerous catalyst for their explosive mix of personalities, propelling them into a world of raw emotion and unbridled passion.

A writer, Kamouraska is based on a real nineteenth-century love-triangle in rural Québec. It paints a poetic and terrifying tableau of the life of Elisabeth d'Aulnières: her marriage to Antoine Tassy, squire of Kamouraska; his violent murder; and her passion for George Nelson, an American doctor. Passionate and evocative, Kamouraska is the timeless story of one woman's destructive commitment to an ideal love.

Three troubled couples attend a two day marital retreat in hopes of saving their marriages. Unbeknownst to them, their psychiatrist is not who they think he is.

A revealing look at the great Quebecois director who gave us such classic films as Mon Oncle Antoine, A toute prendre and Kamouraska: Power of Passion. Amidst the rise of French-Canadian identity and the political struggles of the '60s, Jutra was at the forefront of a group of artists dedicated to social change and attacking taboo.

A young singer-songwriter abandons his life in his hometown and moves to the city to make it big. He achieves fame, but it comes at a price.

A ritual vase, the hampi, is placed in the center of the Musée de plein air de la République du Niger in Niamey, during a ritual ceremony featuring possession dances. With this film, Jean Rouch continues his ethnological and cinematographic study of Songhay ritual objects. He demonstrates that, in a particular context, the transfer of a hampi vase to a museum requires the organization of a ritual ceremony to obtain the gods' approval. At the time, however, reservations about filming a possession dance for the opening of a shrine in a museum made the move "questionable from a museological point of view".

Made for the landmark anthology series, For the Record, Seer Was Here is an example of the bold dramatic programming made at the CBC in the mid-70s, while theatre director John Hirsch was serving as the head of the drama department. Saul Rubinek plays an inmate of a cruel Vancouver prison who brings humour, warmth, a little joy and self-understanding to the fellow prisoners of his cell block. An irreverent satire also featuring Eric Peterson and Martin Short. “Absolutely great, It’s also funny. Very Funny. Very Warm. Very touching… in some ways, a Canadian One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” (Calgary Herald, 1978)

In this French Canadian film, the lives of teenagers are examined in fantasy sequences and through the use of documentary interviews. Prompted by the filmmaker, nine teenagers individually act out their secret dreams and, between times, talk about their world as they see it. The fantasy sequences make creative use of animation, unusual film-development techniques, and stills. Babette conceives of herself as an abbess defending her fortress, a convent; Michelle is transported in a dream of love where all time ceases; Philippe is the revolutionary, defeating all the institutions that plague him, and so on, through all their fantasies. All the actual preoccupations of youth are raised: authority, drugs, social conflict, sex. Jutra's style in "Wow" exhibits his innovative approach to storytelling and filmmaking, showcasing his talents as a director during that period. With English subtitles.

Ian Tracey plays 11-year-old Peter, who is plagued by demons and sent to an institution for setting fires. Peter escapes and hops a freight train headed into northern B.C. He is befriended by a native shaman or "dreamspeaker" (George Clutesi). The shaman makes some strides but is unable to get to the root of Peter's problems. Peter is captured by the police and taken back to the institution where he slides down even further.

Set in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business.

Dedicated “to all victims of intolerance,” "The Devil’s Toy" is a faux–public service documentary that chronicles the early days of skateboarding in Montreal. Framed as mock anti-skateboarding propaganda, Claude Jutra contrasts official hostility with the exhilaration and freedom experienced by youths racing downhill through city streets, shortly before the activity was banned.

I give a methodical account of my film work: the creation of new series (Lire, Trio, Avec Mariola), the shooting of a new feature film (Amours décolorées which will take ten years to edit) with Mariola San Martin.

Short film about the underground part, both geographical and social, of the city of Montreal, through the obsession of a business magnate for a young woman.

In the early 1940's, Canada is a country at war and Florentine is a young woman, from a very poor family, looking for love. She meets two suitable men, a nice soldier from a good and wealthy family, and an ambitious self-centered engineer. She must decide whether she wants to follow her head or her heart...

A woman's peculiar religious convictions lead her on a self-destructive path.

The story of the problems caused by what became known as the Conscripton Crisis in 1917 Canada, which threatened to divide the country.