Films 53/12

Long-time friends Yan, Simon, Roxanne, Maxime and his sister Lily are in their early 20s, the age when anything is possible. They are just embarking on their careers. Then one fine summer day, Yan is involved in a fatal car accident. The young man is killed instantly and the rest of the gang is thrown into turmoil.

Across various timelines and locations, the fates of four characters intertwine as they struggle to find connections and meaning in a world transformed by climate change.

Michèle shares her life with Paul, her husband and work colleague. She has a lover, Thomas, a musician with whom she has been having a passionate affair for some time. Attracted by Thomass non-conformity and lust for life, Michèle abandons her husband, her son and her profession to live this frenzy through to its conclusion. A quest for freedom and change that sends Michèle on a turbulent drift, but remains, nevertheless, intimate and personal.

Jimmy is trapped in a spiral of street drug addiction and withdrawal. One day, Jimmy is forced to get back in contact with his family. The pariah’s return to the pack reawakens old demons in his elder brother Nathan.

A separated couple meet again after 10 years when the body of their missing son is found. Amid the guilt of losing a loved one, they hesitantly move toward affirmation of life, acceptance of death, and even the possibility of reconciliation.

Rabah is forced to take over custody of his son Cédrick. The boy has been mute since losing his mother. Despite the financial strain caused by his immigrant status and undeterred by his fraught relationship with his son, Rabah will manage to rebuild Cédrick’s trust so they can be a family again.

Two solitary people meet each other and form a bond in the back country of the Gaspe peninsula.

The disjointed story of Anne-Marie, an unemployed publicist pounding the pavement in Montreal with her mini-cam, collecting testimonials on the subject of happiness. She meets a medley of characters whom she engages in engrossing, thought-provoking discussions.

Forty-something Pierre is serving a fourteen year prison sentence. His mother, who is approaching eighty, visits him every week. Suzanne, Pierre's current wife, has moved on since he was sent away. Each character gives us a frank account of a period in their lives that seems suspended in time by the fragile connection between life on the inside and the world outside. Their destinies are linked by crime, guilt and loneliness, and like casualties of love and desire, they are dying to stick their heads above the water and breathe the air of life.

The story of Catherine, who, after her violent husband puts her life in serious danger one night, decides to run away with her son and start a new life under a fresh identity.