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Directors (1788)
"b" (167)

Renée Blanchar (4)

Renée Blanchar

Renée Blanchar

Acadian filmmaker Renée Blanchar studied directing at La Fémis in Paris and has since gone on to play a pioneering role for women in television and film. She helmed five seasons of the TV series Belle-Baie, wrote and directed the series Le Monde de Gabrielle Roy, and made a dozen or so award-winning documentaries. Her films are notable for their powerful subjects and her unique talent for conveying the humanity of her protagonists.

  • A Hospital Crucified
    A Hospital Crucified
    Renée Blanchar 2007 1 h 1 min
    On March 2, 2004, Bernard Lord's Conservative government announces that the hospital in Caraquet, New Brunswick, will be converted to a community health centre. Considering the government's decision unfair, the people of the region rally to save the health care services to which they feel entitled. Despite their year-and-a-half-long struggle, the Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus is closed. In recording the chronology of the events, Renée Blanchar plunges into the heart of the action with an urgent need to speak out against injustice. The result is a very human film about solidarity. In French with English subtitles.
  • Rosemarie Landry: Sharing Lyric Art
    Rosemarie Landry: Sharing Lyric Art
    Renée Blanchar 2023 4 min
    Sharing Lyric Art showcases the unique talent of soprano Rosemarie Landry, C.M. Her love of song and the French language has not only taken her on travels around the world—it’s also given her opportunities to share her passion with younger generations in every corner of the globe.
  • A Place that Matters
    A Place that Matters
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    Renée Blanchar 2015 1 h 29 min
    In Sainte-Anne-du-Bocage in Caraquet, New Brunswick, Acadian artists Renée Blanchar, France Daigle, René Cormier and Allain Roy launch several community projects to bring back the former Youth Club built by Acadie’s first architect, Nazaire Dugas.
  • The Silence
    The Silence
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    Renée Blanchar 2021 1 h 48 min
    WARNING: This film discusses the topic of childhood sexual assault. Viewer discretion is advised.

    Why be silent about the most serious matters? Doesn’t silence perpetuate suffering? From the 1950s to the 1980s, Catholic priests sexually abused many young boys in the francophone towns of New Brunswick. These scandals only came to light when the victims were in their fifties, provoking shock and outrage in the media and the public. Why did the affected communities keep silent so long, preferring secrecy to justice and truth? Profiting from their positions of influence to impose a “pious silence” on their parishioners, authority figures built an abusive system that tells us as much about the type of oppression specific to the Acadian population as it does about the blanket denials issued by the Catholic Church. Called to confront the power of this collective silence, veteran filmmaker Renée Blanchar meets with survivors in an attempt to untangle the deeply rooted reasons for this secrecy. With The Silence, she takes us as close as she can to the humanity of these broken men, revealing the forces that, today as in the past, have the power to unite or divide Acadian communities.

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