Monsieur Lazhar
This recurring program highlights Quebec's recent cinematic productions, ranging from prominent works to independent films that are rarely screened or even previously unreleased.
Winner of seven Jutra Awards in 2012, including Best Film and Best Direction
In Montreal, an elementary school teacher dies abruptly. Having learned of the incident in the newspaper, Bachir Lazhar, a 55-year-old Algerian immigrant, goes to the school to offer his services as a substitute teacher. Quickly hired to replace the deceased, he finds himself in an establishment in crisis, while going through his own personal tragedy.
Philippe Falardeau
Philippe Falardeau is a Quebecois director and screenwriter. He studied political science and international relations at the University of Ottawa from 1985 to 1989, and then worked for two years as a political analyst for the Fédération des francophones hors Québec, where he wrote Hier, la francophonie, a historical overview of the Canadian French-speaking diaspora. He left his master's program in international relations to participate in La Course destination monde, which he won in 1992-1993. He directed his first satirical medium-length film about Asian immigration in Canada, Paté chinois (1997), before making his first feature film in 2000, The Left-Hand Side of the Fridge (La moitié gauche du frigo), starring Paul Ahmarani and Stéphane Demers. His second film, Congorama, was presented at the Directors' Fortnight in 2006, and won five Jutra Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. After It's Not Me, I Swear! (C’est pas moi, je le jure!, 2008), he won these two awards again, along with five other Jutras, for Monsieur Lazhar (2011). The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He went on to direct several films in the United States while continuing to make films and television series in Quebec in recent years.
