Hard Truths
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.
Pansy is a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. Meanwhile, her easygoing younger sister, is a single mother with a life as different from Pansy’s as their clashing temperaments - brimming with communal warmth from her salon clients and daughters alike. This expansive film from a master dramatist takes us into the intensities of kinship, duty, and the most enduring of human mysteries: that even through lifetimes of hurt and hardship, we still find ways to love those we call family.

Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh is an English writer-director trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Camberwell and Central Art Schools in London, and at the London Film School. His first feature film Bleak Moments (1971) won the Gold Leopard at Locarno Film Festival and the Golden Hugo at Chicago in 1972. His films have been in Competition at Cannes five times, winning the Palme d’Or for Secrets & Lies (1996), and the Best Director prize for Naked (1993). Timothy Spall also won the festival’s Best Actor prize for his eponymous role in Mr. Turner (2014). Meanwhile Vera Drake (2004) won Venice Film Festival‘s Golden Lion for Best Film and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, and Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) secured Sally Hawkins the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for Best Actress. Across his career, Mike’s films have collected 25 BAFTA nominations and seven wins, as well as 16 Academy Awards nods and two wins. In 2015, he scooped the BAFTA Fellowship, their highest honour. His actors have garnered nods for their performances, and almost all of his HODs have been garlanded for their respective crafts. He has also written and directed over 20 stage plays.
Bio: Métropole Films
