Amazone Film

Art in Action is a portrait of two provocative Montreal artists, Annie Roy and Pierre Allard whose urban installations sound the alarm concerning important social issues.

Gilles Carle, the prolific director of such movies as La vraie nature de Bernadette and Maria Chapdelaine, has been struggling against Parkinsons disease with dignity for about fifteen years. Based on Carles last script completed in 2000, entitled 'Mona MC Gill et son vieux père malade', Charles Binamés documentary, which took slightly over two years to film, gives us a friendly, penetrating look of a brave, lucid creator confronted with suffering and the perspective of death. Although the subject is grave, we see a stong will to live and to create. A movie shrouded in all the light and love of Chloé Ste-Marie, the famous directors companion of 25 years.

At the heart of the Plateau Mont-Royal, Roger Toupin owns a corner grocer that has become an impromptu social club frequented by people who belong to a way of life that is fast disappearing. The film captures the touching and revealing last moments of this unique place.

In November 2001, Quebec Painter Edmund Alleyn (1931-2004) agreed to be filmed in his Montreal studio by his daughter, filmmaker Jennifer Alleyn. There, something unexpected happened : an authentic encounter, with no beating around the bush, no mask. From a few existential questions –about life, painting, death- thruth emerged. The artist died of cancer in December 2004 before Jennifer could film him again. After inheriting his studio, she found herself in this sacred space, still imbued with the presence and imagination of her father. Her film is an attempt to prolong the dialogue, to find the missing fragments of her father’s life. Edmund Alleyn was an intense and complex man of integrity who left his mark on Canadian art history.

Montréal-Nord is one of those areas we euphemistically call “disadvantaged.” A place where drugs, poverty, delinquency, suicide and all kinds of dysfunction are depressingly commonplace. This is where the late Magnus Isacsson decided to film 18 months in the lives of four young men aged 17 to 22: Danny, Alex, Mickerson and Michael. Music is central to all of their lives. More than just a pastime, hip-hop is their outlet for coping with their demons. With the help of their teacher, mentor and friend Don Karnage, and driven by a fierce desire to overcome hardship, they learn to be adults. Winner of the award for Best Canadian Feature Film at the most recent Montreal International Documentary Festival, Ma vie réelle is an exceptionally astute document in which listening and generosity gain the power to defeat misery.

The arrival of the mining company Osisko creates a lot of excitement in Malartic, a small community of 3600 souls in Quebec, Canada. Faced with the implacable Mining Act, which prioritizes the right to exploit subsoil resources rather than the right to property, many families and seniors need to write off certain elements of their heritage plus a part of their lifestyle to make room for the largest open-pit gold mine in Canada. The characters in Others' Gold experience in their own way this major change that will affect their lives and urban environment.

Coming from the countryside to visit a friend, Solange 75, rediscovers Montreal. She talks to everyone with confidence and does some portraits of the people she meets. She meets Tom, a younger, moody and disillusioned man. Fictional scenes are interwoven with documentary scenes: portraits of Montrealers and snatches of conversations taken from life.

A mother who has recently been incarcerated refuses to give up on her young son, no matter how fragile their connection may now be.