Louis Riel or Heaven Touches The Earth
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.
In the presence of the director
Official Selection, 2024 FICUNAM & RVQC 2025
1885, Saskatchewan, Northwest Canada. Louis Riel, leader of the Métis people of Canada, a mixed group of Indigenous and European ancestry, is sentenced to death, found guilty of high treason for having taken up arms against the Canadian government. Based on his prison diaries, we accompany him in his daily life, while he prepares for death. A portrait that makes us discover the political struggle, sacrifice and poetry of a fascinating character who has become a founding myth of Canada.
Matias Meyer
Matías Meyer studied film direction at the Cinematographic Training Center (CCC) in Mexico City. Crafting captivating films that evoke unfamiliar geographies and existentially charged engagements with duration and time, the award-winning filmmaker has developed a personal vernacular that speaks compellingly beyond generic convention and the present moment. He offers refracted but precise visions, that engage vigorously with global film traditions, eschewing exoticism for cinematic formulations of the ineffable. His feature films display a familiar signature and a compelling thematic center, expressing the vastness of solitude, and the epiphanies and purifications that occur on journeys in search of sanctuary, rapture or release. His films have been programmed and awarded in festivals like Toronto, Rotterdam, Locarno and Morelia.
Bio & photo: La Distributrice de Films
