Cheval Films

A heartrending portrait of a couple who face the ultimate test: the consequences they face when Simon, a writer, discovers he has an incurable form of cancer. Lucidly approaching the processes in place to deal with the end of a life – what it means for those faced with their own mortality and for those left behind.

Suffering from a deep depression, actor Serge Thériault has isolated himself for seven years. With sensitivity and respect, the filmmakers focus their camera on Thériault’s wife Anna, his daughter, and a neighbour couple. The friendship inspires touching, beneficial solidarity, as well as a coordinated and patient attempt to help the popular actor emerge from his isolation and embark on a sustainable healing process.

Since the 1990s, the old Gaulin Manor has housed erstwhile residents of Saint-Hyacinthe psychiatric hospital. Some thirty inhabitants occupy this alternative lodging space, their salvation after the wave of deinstitutionalization that one day threw them into the streets with no resources. Profit rules, and so this motel at the world's end will be destroyed to fill the pockets of promoters. The film captures this turning of the page, where each lost character reshuffles their daily life in moving on to the next chapter. Lending an ear to these forgotten outcasts, Manor is careful in framing these shadowy figures, bringing them to life in the light of our attention.