Sweet Sixteen + Gaby's Hill
The mission of the Centre d'art et essai de la Cinémathèque québécoise (CAECQ) is to primary program Quebec-made documentaries and independent fiction, as well as international documentaries, animated and foreign films, while encouraging opportunities for meetings between the public and the artists. Its programming is presented in conjunction with the Cinémathèque québécoise’s under the label New releases.
March 8th screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director
Visit the exhibition Sucré Seize : Symphonie pour adolescentes at Espace Paul-Blouin!
Winner of the Jury Prize, 2023 CINEMANIA
Thirteen-year-old Gaby arrives in the Magdalen Islands to spend the summer with her father, as she does every year. She is thrilled to find the sea she loves so much, the childhood friends, the winding hills on the horizon, and the warm joy of her dad’s home. But this time something is different: she hit puberty, and her life will never be the same.
All highlighted in a evocative and poetic setting, the characters deliver on different themes; self-image, eating disorders, anxiety, their first love, their first kiss, friendship, sorority, sex, rape, incest, social media, social and political revolts. Constructed as a symphony form, the piece of work goes through four movements and is musically supported. The strong visual identity forces the movie to define itself somewhere between full feature film and object of art.
Sweet Sixteen is a cinematographic adaptation from the play of the same name written in 2018 by the late Suzie Bastien.
Alexa-Jeanne Dubé
Alexa-Jeanne Dubé is first and foremost a comedian. She started directing in 2016 with her first short film YES BUT NO THANKS and continued her path with Joutel (2021), BKS (2020) and Scopique (2017), all of which have been featured in several festivals around the world, receiving a few prizes along the way. In addition, her last two short films were nominated at the Gala Québec Cinéma in the Best Drama Short Film category.