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Les ordres (French with English subtitles)
Location
Main projection room
Date
May 2nd, 2025
Duration
109 min
Cycle
FIAF Congress

To coincide with the exceptional circumstances of hosting the annual congress of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), we are offering a program highlighting the strengths of our collections and our mandate: animated film gems, world premiere commissioned works, newly restored features, documentaries devoted to heritage questions and the reuse of archives.

Winner of the Best Director Award, 1975 Cannes Film Festival

Orders
Directed by
Michel Brault
Language
French with English subtitles
Actors
Hélène Loiselle, Jean Lapointe, Claude Gauthier
Origins
Quebec
Year
1974
Duration
109 min
Genre
Drama
Format
Digital
Synopsis

Blending fiction and documentary, Orders is based on the testimonies of ordinary citizens who were arrested and imprisoned without charge following the adoption of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis in 1970 in Quebec.

Orders
Awards

Michel Brault

Born in 1928, Michel Brault first devoted himself to photography. He joined the National Film Board as a cameraman in 1956. He collaborated on several films of the famous series Candid Eye, produced by the English team. He gradually turns to directing, a field in which he distinguishes himself, with the help of a portable camera, with which he captures the changing landscape of identity in Quebec during the Revolution tranquille. In 1958 he made the seminal film Les raquetteurs with Gilles Groulx and Marcel Carrière. In 1963, Brault and Pierre Perrault made Pour la suite du monde, which became the first classic of Quebec direct cinema. He also directed the film Les ordres in 1974. In addition to his work as a director, Michel Brault was the director of photography for such landmark films as Entre tu et vous (Gilles Groulx, 1969), Mon oncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971), Kamouraska (Claude Jutra, 1973) and Les bons débarras (Francis Mankiewicz, 1980). His career will total more than 200 films, as director or director of photography.

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I started with documents and other people’s stories. I listened to their experiences and tried to recreate the impressions they gave me of the moments they lived through. But this is not a documentary. Calling Orders a fictional documentary would be like saying a circle can be square.
Michel Brault
Cast
About Michel Brault
Selected filmography
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