In the Forest
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 Abitibi-Témiscamingue International Film Festival
In the Forest is a documentary essay that explores the deep connections between humans, animals, and the forest. Through fragments of lives that intersect, echo, or contradict one another, the film gradually weaves the portrait of a rich, complex, and sometimes unsettling world where the desire to protect coexists with the drive to exploit. Moving between realism, political engagement, and dreamlike imagery, it reveals a forest that — in the face of multiplying climate upheavals and an accelerating sixth mass extinction — whispers, to those who know how to listen, the urgent need to safeguard the fragile balance between humanity, fauna, and flora.
Pascale Ferland
Pascale Ferland has been a screenwriter, director, and producer for over twenty years. After studying visual arts at UQAM, where her video works received awards, she developed a personal body of documentary films, grounded in fieldwork and driven by a desire to create dialogue between form and ideas. In 2003, she directed her first documentary, Something Like Immortality, followed by Tree With Severed Branches (2005) and Adagio for a Biker (2008), which earned her the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award from the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2012, she wrote, directed, and produced her first feature-length fiction film, Riptide. Her 2018 documentary, Pauline Julien, Intimate and Political, achieved wide recognition and won numerous awards. Her most recent film, In the Forest (2025), extends this creative path and resonates at the heart of contemporary debates on our relationship with nature and the land.
