Cardboard City
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.
Official Selection, 2025 Fantasia Festival
Against the voracious concrete and a ruthless developer, a poet stands tall, the last bulwark against oblivion, like a Gaul defying Caesar. He gathers voices from the past, revives memories, and weaves an ode to Ville Jacques-Cartier’s working-class heritage, a haven where hopes and struggles once echoed. In its streets, the shadows of labor still whisper, remnants of a bygone era, a fragile glimmer of memory threatened by the greed of the present.
André Forcier
André Forcier is a Quebecois filmmaker and screenwriter, born on July 19, 1947, in Montreal. His body of work, often associated with South American magical realism due to its elements of fantasy, is nevertheless deeply rooted in Quebec’s reality. In fact, it can be more accurately seen as one of the few existing links between Quebec’s popular oral culture and its national cinema. Unlike Pierre Perrault, who observed the ways, language, and mannerisms of a proud, independent, and deeply rural Quebec in order to ennoble them, Forcier embraces the North American "bastardization" of his society, while highlighting the vitality of popular imagination. André Forcier’s cinema is widely recognized both in Canada and abroad. A pioneer, he was the first Canadian filmmaker to be honored with a retrospective at the Cinémathèque française (1987). In 2003, he received the Prix Albert-Tessier, Quebec’s highest distinction for lifetime achievement in cinema. In March 2010, he was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Media Arts, the highest honor of its kind in Canada. Forcier’s exceptional career has been celebrated with the Iris Tribute Award from Québec Cinéma for his 50 years in film (2018), and the Louve d'honneur from the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma for his lifetime achievements (2019). In 2024, Ababouiné brilliantly closed the Fantasia Festival, where Forcier was honored with both a career tribute and the Audience Award. This recognition continued at Les Percéides in Gaspésie, where he again received a lifetime achievement award, and Ababouiné won the Audience Award, confirming his status as an emblematic figure of Quebec cinema.
Jean-Marc E. Roy
Recipient of the CALQ Creator of the Year Award and the Contribution Culture Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean Prize, Jean-Marc E. Roy’s work oscillates between documentary and fiction. Since 1999, many of his films have been screened and awarded both locally and internationally. His series Pick-up: À la rencontre du bout du monde received a Gémeaux Award in 2012; Cowboy: Un rêve canadien and Airs Communs earned nominations in 2014 and 2017, respectively. He was part of the official selection at the 47th and 49th Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, as well as the Québec Cinéma Gala in 2016 and 2018 with Bleu tonnerre and Crème de menthe. A passionate admirer of French-Canadian popular culture, many of his productions have toured the world. A Canadian Screen Award nominee in 2016, 2017, and 2020, he released his first feature documentary, Des histoires inventées, in the winter of 2019. Also a director for Télé-Québec, he recently completed an 80-minute anthropoetic film essay, Cardboard City, co-created with André Forcier.
