Program

Chloé, a Quebecois obstetrician, lives in Israel but works in a nearby Palestinian camp. She makes friends with her neighbour Ava, an Israeli soldier who works as a border guard, and also with Rand, a pregnant Palestinian woman who visits the clinic where Chloé works.

She becomes close to Rand and her family, and she spends time with them. While suicide attempts in Israel and army retaliations are increasing, tensions on the border mount. For Chloé, the situation becomes unbearable.

The Symposium proposes a meeting with Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, prolific Quebec filmmaker, scriptwriter, and novelist.

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette has a terribly clear perspective of the world around her, but it is both tender and balanced. Named the Artist for Peace in 2012, she has made some fifteen documentary films, most notably, SI J’AVAIS UN CHAPEAU, LES PETITS GÉANTS, (Prix Gémeaux Best Documentary),

October 1970. Following the kidnapping of Richard Cross and Pierre Laporte, in reaction to sympathy expressed for the FLQ “terrorists” after the televised reading of their manifesto and its publication in newspapers, 450 people were arrested, in the middle of the night, and kept in prison for varying lengths of time before being released without any charges made against them.

Between a fiction and a documentary film, Les Ordres is based on the testimony of 50 or so people imprisoned following the adoption of the War Measure’s Act in October 1970. We follow five characters, whose roles are constructed using these testimonies, from their arrest to their being freed. Prize for direction at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975.

The Symposium welcomes Carl Trahan, winner of the Prix MNBAQ in contemporary art for 2016. He will present his work, which explores the twisted links between writing and politics.

Carl Trahan’s multidisciplinary art practice is concerned with the period between the industrial revolution and the Second World War. Dwelling on certain events and historical texts, he broaches in particular, the spiritual crisis tied to the advanced sciences and technologies in the 19th century and their repercussions in European culture and politics that led to important world conflicts. He has had many solo and group exhibitions in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Berlin, Rome and Créteil (France). And he has been artist in residence at Espoo (Finland), in Paris, Rome and Berlin. In 2017, the MNBAQ presented his first museum exhibition.

More than 65 million people around the world have been forced to leave their homes fleeing famine, climate change and war in the greatest human displacement since World War II. The Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei, throws light on both the spreading refugee crisis and its deeply personal, human impact.

Filmed during one year in 23 countries, Human Flow is a testimony to these human beings and their search for safety, shelter and justice: from teeming refugee camps to dangerous journeys on the high seas, to the barbwire fences at the borders.

The humanitarian photographer, Aydin Matlabi will share his views of the world: he who has travelled the planet to show us human crisis, conflicts and upheavals. His photographs embody accounts of suffering but also represent the inherent strength of human nature.

Aydin Matlabi holds a BFA and a MFA. His work explores the way that art can be communicated from one culture to another. Having worked in Southern Asia, Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq as well as in many other war zones, Aydin is interested mainly in the ability of communities to overcome violence. In collaboration with the people living in the place, Aydin constructs a visual narrative that can be understood on an international level.

Teheran 1978: Marjane, eight years old, dreams of becoming a prophet and saving the world. Cherished by her progressive and cultivated family, she follows the events that will lead to the revolution and the fall of the Shah of Iran’s regime. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the “religious police” begin their control of people, the clothes they wear and their behaviour. Marjane now must wear a veil but she dreams of becoming a revolutionary.

Each day the inner repression becomes more severe. In this increasingly difficult context, having a rebellious nature becomes problematic. So For her safety, her parents decide to send her to Austria. In Vienna, Marjane, fourteen years old, experiences her second revolution: adolescence, freedom, the intoxication of love, but also exile, loneliness and difference.

Since 2014, more than 1,181 Indigenous women in Canada have been murdered or have gone missing, according the RCMP… and this number is constantly increasing. How can a situation such as this endure in a country that likes to think of itself as a model of human rights? This is the theme of this documentary in which women and men testify to a disturbing reality and sound a heartfelt cry to break Ce silence qui tue (this silence that kills).

A member of the Abenaki community, Kim O’Bomsawin has written and directed the following documentaries: La ligne rouge, 2014, Kirano, 2015, Ce silence qui tue, 2017 and Du Teweikan à l’électro, 2017.

Film duration: 70 minutes

Discussion with the director following the screening.

1181 Indigenous women in Canada have been murdered or have gone missing. How can a situation such as this endure in a country that likes to think of itself as a model of human rights? This documentary is sound a heartfelt cry to break Ce silence qui tue (this silence that kills).

The Grant, created in memory of this important figure in Quebec contemporary art, is awarded to students studying art history at Université du Québec à Montréal who are outstanding in their research in contemporary art.

Visitors to the Symposium are invited to meet the winner of the 2018 Bourse Jean-Claude-Rochefort on Saturday, August 25th at 4 p.m..

Jean-Claude-Rochefort was born in Saint-Hilarion de Charlevoix in 1957. He lived in Charlevoix and in Montreal, where he worked as an art critic at Le Devoir, Spirale, Vie des Arts and as an independent curator. He was a gallery director and curator, a key figure and an inspiration to the Montreal contemporary art scene. He died tragically in June 2010. This grant reminds us that his spirit is still alive in the mountains and valleys of the Charlevoix region that he so loved.

A highlight of the Symposium is the guided tour with the artistic director Sylvie Lacerte. During this visit, which closes the 2018 edition of the event, Sylvie Lacerte shares her views of the works the artists have produced during the four weeks of the Symposium. You are invited to this important occasion that begins at 2 p.m. on August 26th.

Born in 1991, Natasha is an Innu poet, painter, actor and an activist concerned with the environment and the rights of Indigenous people. She was born in Pessamit, Quebec and since 2012, has sparked attention in Quebec with her “territorial” poetry slams. She has published three collections of poetry that have been critically acclaimed. They are N’entre pas dans mon âme avec tes chaussures (Mémoire d’encrier, 2012), Do Not Enter My Soul in Your Shoes and Manifeste Assi (Mémoire d’encrier, 2014) Assi Manifesto, as well as Bleuets et abricots (Mémoire d’encrier, 2016) Blueberries and Apricots. In the fall of 2017, she made a dramatic entrance in the Quebec TV series Unité 9, where she plays a young Indigenous woman condemned to fifteen years in prison.