Ariane Frédérique

Four very different Montreal university teachers gather at a rambling country house to prepare a dinner. Remy (married), Claude (a homosexual), Pierre (involved with a girlfriend) and Alain (a bachelor) discuss sex, the female body and their affairs with them. Meanwhile, their four female guests, Louise (Remy's wife of 15 years), Dominique (a spinster), Diane (a divorcée) and Danielle (Pierre's girlfriend) are spending the time at a downtown health gym. They also discuss sex, the female body and, naturally, men. Later in the evening, they finally meet at the country house and have dinner. A ninth guest, named Mario, who used to know Diane, drops in on the group for some talk and has a surprise of his own.

As a small-town social worker investigates a commune headed by a spiritual leader calling himself Moses, she discovers a dead child, sadistic rituals, and ruthless mental and physical abuse.

In Quebec 40s, orphans or abandoned children are placed in a gigantic psychiatric hospital where children were locked. Were they sick? No, they simply had no family. To escape this oppressive universe, they created a parallel world: the institution's basement where, in a maze of tunnels, they founded an independent company, with its rituals, spells. A young girl, Agnes, reigns over this underground world that adults seem to tolerate.

This crime drama concerns Guillaume (Jacques Godin), who has just finished serving 10 years in prison for a crime he never committed. Now he is out seeking revenge against his old "buddy" who lied on the stand and put him in jail. He brings along his young granddaughter and drives like a maniac as he nears his destination. That sets three brutish thugs on his tail, anxious to corner him and end his days behind the wheel. So while Guillaume is chasing down his betrayer, he is being chased in turn. It's not a formula for continued good health.

Ruth is the story of a painful adolescence. Ruth decides on a whim to leave her small village in the Bas Saint-Laurent for the "real world" of the big city, Montreal. There she meets up with her brother, Jean-Paul. Her many lovers range from one-night stands like Bernard to Yves and Robert, who are briefly in her life. Passionate, anticonformist Ruth has to contend with her brother's ferocious jealousy - he goes as far as attacking Robert, his best friend. Robert, completely baffled by Ruth's cynical recklessness, finally pushes her away. Ruth continues her struggle to find absolute love. She clings passionately, clumsily and shamelessly to those she loves and those she doesn't, in frenzied desperation. Continually disappointed and shut out by the "real world," she chooses a way out that is typically extreme...