Denys Arcand
Also Known As: Denys Arcand, OC
Biography: Georges-Henri Denys Arcand CC GOQ (born June 25, 1941) is a French-Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer based in Montreal, who crafts deeply personal and thought-provoking films, earning international acclaim. His career began with features like "Une Maudite Galette" (1972) and "Gina" (1975), exploring diverse narratives. "The Decline of the American Empire" (1986) depicted Quebecois intellectuals tackling issues of sexuality, success, and intimacy, winning critical acclaim, nine Genies, and a Cannes Fipresci prize. "Jesus of Montreal" delved into the lives of Montreal artists portraying biblical figures, blending day-to-day struggles with religious performances. Arcand's film "Stardom" satirized fame, closing Cannes 2000 and opening TIFF, a rare honour for Canadian cinema. "The Barbarian Invasions," a sequel to his earlier work, earned Arcand an Oscar, Cannes prizes, French Cesars, and Quebec Jutra awards, solidifying his cinematic legacy.
Department: Directing
Place of Birth: Deschambault, Quebec, Canada
Birthday: June 25, 1941
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
The Black Sheep
Overview: From coast to coast, from St. John's, Newfoundland to Vancouver, British Columbia, Jacques Godbout films a documentary chronicle of the political turnaround that was to follow the Meech Lake Accord. Following the Meech referendum, Quebec and Canada found themselves at an impasse after a long and ultimately fruitless negotiation, various social and political actors spoke out. Their comments, linked to film clips on the lives of important Canadian politicians (Sir Georges-Étienne Cartier, John A. Macdonald, Louis-Joseph Papineau...), draw parallels between the speeches of yesterday and those of the post-Meech era.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1992-05-30
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Montreal Stories
Overview: Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1991-11-08
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Normande
Overview: Normande St-Onge works as a clerk in a pharmacy and takes dance classes with the dream of being a cabaret dancer. Her mother, Berthe, has been confined to a mental institution by Normande's uncle, the wealthy lawyer Jean-Paul. But Normande, who does not believe her mother is insane, kidnaps her from the institution and brings her home. Also living with them is Normande's sister Pierette, who has asthma and a drug addiction, Normande's boyfriend Bouliane, who is unemployed and in no hurry to find a job, and a strange young magician named Carol she took in after he was kicked out of his home. All of these people depend on Normande in various ways and exploit her; Normande, desperate to be loved, is driven mad by the demands of her parasite family. When she receives an eviction notice stating that the building will be demolished and rebuilt into a restaurant, it all becomes too much for Normande and her mind retreats into fantasy to protect her from the harsh realities.
Genres: Drama Fantasy
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1975-10-30
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Shooting Star
Overview: Four young women are participating on Idole Instantanée, a reality show produced by Omni Global, in which a complete stranger turns into a music star in just 24 hours.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2005-06-15
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Live Before the Letter
Overview: Thanks to the development of techniques and the adventurous spirit of pioneering filmmakers, among whom Michel Brault occupies a central place, a new way of making cinema was born at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. This film relevantly retraces the history of a collective movement which revolutionized production and filming methods in Quebec and the world.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2006-01-01
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Barney's Version
Overview: The picaresque and touching story of the politically incorrect, fully lived life of the impulsive, irascible and fearlessly blunt Barney Panofsky.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2010-10-26
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Night Zoo
Overview: Marcel, recently released from prison, attempt to rebuild his relationship with his girlfriend Julie (now a prostitute) and especially his father Albert (who thinks he's been away on a long trip abroad), while being pursued by two corrupt cops (one of whom bears a longstanding grudge against him) for drug money he's alleged to possess.
Genres: Thriller Crime Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1987-05-01
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Les héritiers du mouton noir
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2003-01-01
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The Barbarian Invasions
Overview: In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', middle-aged Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. His ex-wife, Louise, asks their estranged son, Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the Canadian healthcare system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while reuniting some of Remy's old friends, including Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude, who return to see their friend before he passes on.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2003-09-24
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Stealing Alice
Overview: Artist and writer Marc Séguin offers his first film which is about a woman named Alice who steals paintings in order to reattribute them to people who can truly appreciate their beauty.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2016-07-10
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Dirty Money
Overview: A robbery at the secluded country home of a wealthy old man goes horribly awry.
Genres: Crime Action Comedy
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1972-06-15
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Achieving the Unachievable
Overview: M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-09-01
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Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche
Overview: This compelling documentary explores Canadian film culture and tries to discover what defines Canadian film through interviews with notable filmmakers.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2004-01-01
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Le cri du rhinocéros
Overview: Marc Labrèche, the Director of this documentary, himself an author, actor and host, meets other creators to ask them these questions that inhabit him. Do artists have an expiry date? Do we create our best works in our youth or, on the contrary, does experience allow us to develop a greater mastery of our medium? In this respect, are there important differences between the different forms of art such as music, cinema and literature?
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2018-11-27
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Kiss Me With All Your Love
Overview: Montreal, 1940. The Second World War is raging in Europe. Pierre Sauvageau, 22, would like to enlist, but he has to take care of his twin sister, crippled from birth. This proximity awakens the sensuality of Berthe who tries to seduce her brother. Pierre rejects her advances, but when he falls in love with Marguerite, his best friend's girlfriend, he is haunted by the fantasy of his sister.
Genres: Drama Comedy Romance
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2016-08-25
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C'est pas la faute à Jacques Cartier
Overview: Three American tourists explore Quebec guided by an imaginative leader, in an atmosphere of health and good humor. Baroque incidents, romance, and satire on society unfold, aiming to evoke monumental laughter from Quebecers.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1968-02-18
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Mon oeil
Overview: One evening a man watches eight movies simultaneously on television.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1971-01-29
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Réjeanne Padovani
Overview: The unexpected return of his ex-wife and the assembly of a group of protesters both threaten to wreck a corrupt contractor's inauguration party for his new superhighway.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1973-01-01
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Forgotten Flowers
Overview: Brother Marie-Victorin, founder of Montreal’s Botanical Garden, is bored with heaven and decides to return earth to help former agronomist turned beekeeper Albert save Quebec’s flora from a multinational that is poisoning the Earth with chemicals.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2019-10-25
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Pigs Are Seldom Clean
Overview: The true identity of an undercover RCMP narcotics agent is discovered by the criminals he is investigating and his family pays the price.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1973-11-15
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The Magical Eye
Overview: Features clips from 21 documentary and animation film classics, interviews with NFB filmmakers past and present, and incisive commentary from film critics and historians on the role and influence of the NFB during its first half century of existence.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-01-01
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Léolo
Overview: The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.
Genres: Comedy Drama Fantasy
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1992-09-16
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Jesus of Montreal
Overview: A group of actors putting on an interpretive Passion Play in Montreal begin to experience a meshing of their characters and their private lives as the production takes form against the growing opposition of the Catholic church.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1989-05-15
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Sodankylä Forever
Overview: The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle — where the sun never sets. Founded by Aki and Mika Kaurismäki along with Anssi Mänttäri and Peter von Bagh in 1985, the festival has played host to an international who’s who of directors and each day begins with a two-hour discussion. To mark the festival’s silver anniversary, festival director Peter von Bagh edited together highlights from these dialogues to create an epic four-part choral history of cinema drawn from the anecdotes, insights, and wisdom of his all-star cast: Coppola, Fuller, Forman, Chabrol, Corman, Demy, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, Varda, Oliveira, Erice, Rouch, Gilliam, Jancso — and 64 more. Ranging across innumerable topics (war, censorship, movie stars, formative influences, America, neorealism) these voices, many now passed away, engage in a personal dialogue across the years that’s by turns charming, profound, hilarious and moving.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fi
Release Date: 2010-08-05
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Nominingue... depuis qu'il existe
Overview: A Docufiction about the twin realities of the Nominingue village in rural quebec, a poverty town turned vacation spot. where the older generation remembers the harsh conditions and poverty that afflicted them, while younger generations and tourist deal with ennui.
Genres: Drama Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1967-02-01
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Good Men
Overview: After the birth of his grandson, Bobby Roth undertakes a cinematic investigation as to what constitutes being a "good man" in today's world. This voyage of discovery leads him to interview more than fifty of his friends, both men and women who he considers to be "good people," about their views on everything from how they were parented to their thoughts on feminism, change, and regrets they might have. Their answers both surprises and enlighten both the viewers and Bobby, himself.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2024-10-04
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Le prix du paradis
Overview:
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2017-03-11
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At the End of Nothing at All
Overview: Every morning, Marcel confides in his tape recorder. It is from his reflections on life that this film takes us into the wake of his story.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2024-03-02
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Le documentaire selon Denys Arcand
Overview: Interview with director Denys Arcand about his documentary work. Conducted on the premises of the canadian National Film Board (NFB).
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date:
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Québec: Duplessis and After ...
Overview: This film establishes a parallel between the 1970 electoral campaign in Québec and the 1936 campaign dominated by Maurice Duplessis. It shows the hope but also the uncertainty that existed in 1970. Had the Quiet Revolution really changed things in Québec? Was it possible that a new leader would emerge on the political scene? (NFB.ca)
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1972-06-23
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