5 Shorts Project

IMPORTANT: For the optimal experience, please use headphones and turn up the volume.

Steve Verreault and Sébastien Dave Tremblay accompany the naturalist photographer and biologist Hugues Deglaire during an observation walk in the forest. Rich in meditations on the benefits of being in nature, this contemplative and colourful short film gives voice to the whispers of the forest. Filmed in two days in the vicinity of Matane, Attuned calls on the sensorial to evoke the symbiosis between man and nature.

IMPORTANT: For the optimal experience, please use headphones and turn up the volume.

The influence of the weather on our daily lives and the immense role it plays in our conversations, day after day, are undeniable. The creators Guillaume Lévesque and Antoine Létourneau-Berger had the brilliant idea of weaving their film from snippets of meteorology talk collected in various cities of the Bas-Saint-Laurent. Focusing on human speech and its poetry, It'll Be Nice Out Tomorrow demonstrates how the uncontrollable elements permeate our collective imagination.

IMPORTANT: For the optimal experience, please use headphones and turn up the volume.

This playful documentary by Nicolas Paquet and Tom Jacques stages the monumental dance of the peat vacuum harvester, a gigantic industrial machine conceived in Rivière-du-Loup. On top of a dramatic soundtrack composed with invented instruments, workers are busy forming large mounds, which are seen in all their aesthetic splendor through the eyes of the two creators. A nod to the NFB film De la tourbe et du restant, shot in the peat bogs of the Bas-Saint-Laurent during the 1970s.

IMPORTANT: For the optimal experience, please use headphones and turn up the volume.

Unique alliance of art and science, the experimental film Night Fair focuses on brain activity through the different cycles of a night's sleep. Through voice mail, media artist Cynthia Naggar and sound designer Gueze collected the dreams of citizens. These are ingeniously combined with graphic and sound representations generated by algorithms from anonymous medical data.

From a family of nomads, the filmmaker writes a magnificent, poetic letter to her children in which the bicycle becomes a powerful symbol of heritage, transference, and coming together.

A direct and unvarnished – yet tender and humorous – portrait of a typical day in the life of director Délia Gunn at Réservoir-Dozois while she is eight months pregnant.

Narrated by a six-year-old girl, the making of a rainbow cake takes on the magical power of bringing generations together.

In this humorous “experiential” documentary, the words of four overworked Abitibi women encourage viewers to reflect on work/family balance and the dangers of exhaustion.

Thirty people from different generations come together in a community hall to learn line dancing with the dynamic instructor Lorraine Camirand.

Air force pilots, a heavy metal band and two fans of modified cars are the unlikely focus of a deadpan film essay on language. Through a clever, unpredictable edit, Philippe David Gagné takes great delight in revealing the strange ways that men communicate.

Viewer Advisory: This film contains scenes of animal slaughter.

In a rural setting, the bleeding of a pig is depicted plainly, as an autumn ritual. A just and moving tribute to the handing down of actions that, shared across families and generations, also perpetuate true social solidarity.

Lifeguards run down the beach and dive into the ocean to save swimmers from drowning. These dramatic rescues are captured by a hyperactive, spinning camera that becomes one with the elements and challenges how subjective a documentary may be.

A night in a bar like any other… Deftly capturing furtive glances, moments of euphoria and awkward situations, Serge Bordeleau blends tools borrowed from fiction filmmaking with documentary observation to construct a gallery of characters who provide undeniable proof that every night holds a myriad potential stories.

A routine workday in a granite quarry turns surreptitiously into a captivating industrial symphony. While men work in the background, different equipment and machines perform for the camera as if they are individual dancers in a contemporary ballet.

In this short documentary, burn victims get to enjoy a family day at the beach thanks to an outing organized by the Association des grands brûlés. Enduring the curious stares of strangers isn't easy, but the desire to lead a full life, especially on such a beautiful summer day, is simply too strong. By sharing the inspiring stories of these men and women, Jeremy Peter Allen's At the Beach invites us to embrace our differences.

This short documentary transports us to the Saint-Félicien racetrack, where engines are running hot and excitement has reached a fever pitch. With its thunderous soundtrack, jarring backfires and choking clouds of smoke, Martin Bureau's Hell Runs on Gasoline! takes us deep inside a chaotic battle to the finish. Race cars hit the track, accidents pile up and the flames of burning engines wreak havoc - an infernal vision that soon dissipates into an eerily silent cemetery of abandoned carcasses.

This short documentary is an exploration of life, from the first breath to the last. Footsteps in a rocky desert. Human shadows cast upon the ground. A bedridden woman suffering in the twilight of her life. A feverish birth in a delivery room. In just a few modest shots, the film's unexpected intertwining of life and death - stark contrasts between shadow and light, moaning and breathing - poignantly reveal and record the essence of our humanity.

In this documentary short, several men go through a job interview eager to get a fresh start in life. With each question that's asked, we glimpse tiny snippets of their lives along with their hopes and fears. Nicolas Lévesque's Interview with a Free Man cleverly toys with viewers through its oblique narration, constantly upending our expectations.

In this short documentary, massive ships harking from all four corners of the world majestically glide by on the St. Lawrence River as riverside residents watch. But they know nothing of the secrets hidden in these floating leviathans laden with colourful containers - except for a select few who get to briefly join their voyage when they guide the ocean-crossing ships safely into harbour.

Nadine Beaudet's World of Passage captures poetic fragments of life on board as sailors perform their endless tasks.