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Tahani Rached (8)
Tahani Rached
Tahani Rached left her native Egypt for Quebec in 1966. She was hired as a staff filmmaker by the NFB in the early 1980s, after having made a number of videos for international cooperation organizations and directing her first documentary, Les voleurs de job (1980), about immigrants to Quebec. Over the next two decades, she made 11 films, including Haïti (Québec) (1985), Au Chic Resto Pop (1990), Doctors with Heart (1993), Four Women of Egypt (1997) and For a Song (2001), before deciding to return to Egypt and continue her work there. Throughout her 30-plus-year career, she has consistently condemned injustice, poverty and suffering, both in Quebec and abroad. Tahani Rached is the winner of the 2023 Albert Tessier Award.
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Haïti (Québec) (English Version)Tahani Rached 1985 59 minHaitians make up the largest black community in Quebec: there are over 40,000 of them, the vast majority of them living on the island of Montreal, where they are often the target of prejudice, hostility and contempt. Is this how we welcome them?
This documentary film is not an indictment, let alone a trial. However, it does want to catalyze our attention, by having us witness a cruel and dramatic reality: the Haitian community of Montreal, these people from another culture who came here bringing with them their hopes as sorrows, suffers the pain of our rejection.
If they left their homeland, it was to flee repression, poverty, and try to find –among us– a better life. Have they found it? Maybe they got a job here and the right to speak and act freely. But are they any better understood, loved and respected? -
Emergency! A Critical SituationTahani Rached 1999 52 minShot at the Pierre Boucher Hospital in Montreal, this film takes us into the emergency room to see how our healthcare system is holding up. What it reveals is a powerful indictment of management that sees only the bottom line while human lives are at stake.
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Au Chic Resto PopTahani Rached 1991 1 h 24 minThis feature-length film about poverty in Montreal is set against a soundtrack that includes rap, blues, rock, and country and western music. The film deals with the universal themes of hunger, hope and love and is named after an actual Montreal restaurant that's been serving those in need for over 25 years. In French with English subtitles.
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Soraida, a Woman of PalestineTahani Rached 2004 1 h 59 minThis feature-length film introduces viewers to Soraida, a Palestinian woman who lives in Ramallah. In her neighbourhood the women do not all wear veils, the men do not rattle off empty political slogans, the young people do not strap bombs to their belts, and the children play together like kids everywhere. Taking us into the daily existence of Soraida, her family and neighbours, the film compels us to ask fundamental questions about life in the Middle East.
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Four Women of EgyptTahani Rached 1997 1 h 29 minThis feature documentary invites you to partake in a discussion between 4 Egyptian women of different political and religious stripe. Amina, Safynaz, Shahenda and Wedad are Muslim, Christian, or non-religious, but they are first and foremost friends. They listen to one another's views and argue openly, without ever breaking the bond that unites them. How do we get along with each other when our views collide? A timely question, and a universal one. Four Women of Egypt takes on this challenge, and their confrontation redefines tolerance.
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Doctors with HeartTahani Rached 1994 1 h 52 minTahani Rached’s powerful documentary enters the doors of an AIDS clinic in Montreal. We meet a group of dedicated doctors struggling to provide health care to their patients. This 1994 film explores legal and ethical problems surrounding HIV/AIDS and the struggle against fear, rumours and prejudice. It is still relevant today. In French with English subtitles.
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For a SongTahani Rached 2001 1 h 17 minThis documentary opens the door to the magnificent world of choral music, a world inhabited by exceptional beings with the capacity to experience joy from a single musical note. They sing anywhere and everywhere: at the wheel, in the shower, even in the kitchen. But above all, they sing together, men and women of all ages and various backgrounds, transformed by the radiant glory of song and united under the banner of L'Ensemble vocal d'Outremont.
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Beirut! Not Enough Death to Go RoundTahani Rached 1983 57 minA moving and graphic portrait of the people of wartorn Beirut in their day-to-day struggle to survive in the rubble and despair. Filmed shortly after the 1982 massacres at Sabra and Chatila, the film gives a vivid picture of the plight of these people and of any people who are too poor to escape the ravages of war.
