The history of cinema in Quebec started on June 27, 1896 when the Frenchman Louis Minier inaugurated the first movie projection in North America in a Montreal theatre room. However, it would have to wait until the 1960s before a genuine Quebec cinema industry would emerge. Approximately 620 feature-length films have been produced, or partially produced by the Quebec film industry since 1943.
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is a novel by Canadian novelist Gaétan Soucy. It was one of the novels chosen for inclusion in the French version of Canada Reads, broadcast on Radio-Canada in 2004, where it was championed by actor, film director, screenwriter, and musician Micheline Lanctôt. The book caused a sensation in Quebec and was immediately translated into more than ten languages. It was translated into English as The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches by Sheila Fischman.
Valérie is a 1969 black-and-white Canadian erotic film directed by Denis Héroux. It was the first Quebec film to show nudity. It turned an unprecedented gross of $1.68 million, making it the highest-grossing Canadian film of its time.
Léolo is a 1992 French Canadian coming-of-age fantasy comedy-drama film by director Jean-Claude Lauzon. The film tells the story of a young boy named Léo "Léolo" Lauzon, played by Maxime Collin, who engages in an active fantasy life while growing up with his Montreal family, and begins to have sexual fantasies about his neighbour Bianca, played by Giuditta del Vecchio. The film also stars Ginette Reno, Pierre Bourgault, Andrée Lachapelle, Denys Arcand, Julien Guiomar, and Germain Houde. Gilbert Sicotte narrates the film as the adult Léolo.
Nobody Waved Good-bye is a 1964 National Film Board of Canada production directed by Don Owen, starring Peter Kastner, Julie Biggs and Claude Rae. A sequel, Unfinished Business, was released in 1984.
Marie-Aurore-Lucienne Gagnon, simply known as Aurore Gagnon, was a Canadian girl who was a victim of child abuse. She died of exhaustion and blood poisoning from some 52 wounds inflicted by her stepmother, Marie-Anne Houde, and her father, Télesphore Gagnon. The story of l'enfant martyre received great attention in the media and Aurore became an icon of Quebec sociological and popular culture.
Stéphanie Lapointe is a Quebec singer, song writer, television and movie actress and humanitarian activist. She is best known as the winner of the second season of Star Académie.
Aurore is a 2005 Quebec biographical drama film that was directed by Luc Dionne and produced by Denise Robert and Daniel Louis. It is based on the true story of Aurore Gagnon, one of Quebec's best-known victims of child abuse. The movie is also a remake of Jean-Yves Bigras's 1952 movie La petite Aurore: l'enfant martyre .
The Cinémathèque québécoise is a film conservatory in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Its purpose is to preserve, document, film, and television footage and related documents and artifacts for future use by the public. The Cinémathèque's collections include over 35,000 films from all eras and countries, 25,000 television programmes, 28,000 posters, 600,000 photos, 2,000 pieces of historical equipment, 15,000 scripts and production documents, 45,000 books, 3,000 magazine titles, thousands of files, as well as objects, props, and costumes. The conservatory also includes a film theatre, which screens rarely seen films and videos.
Yves Jacques OC is a Canadian film, television and stage actor.
Jean-Yves Bigras was a Canadian film director and film editor, considered a pioneer in Quebec cinema. Bigras studied first at the University of Ottawa and then at Queen's University. From 1939 to 1942, he served in World War II as part of the RCAF. When he returned to Canada, he became one of the first French Canadians to be hired by the NFB and worked there as an editor until 1948. He was then hired to work in Renaissance Éducationnel, the children's education film section of Renaissance Films Distribution. It was here that he got to work on his first feature film, Le gros Bill (1949), co-directing with René Delacroix. Bigras moved on to direct three feature films himself, including La petite Aurore l’enfant martyre (1951), a big hit with audiences and a staple of Quebec Cinema. In 1953, he began working for Radio-Canada where he became one of its principal directors until his death in 1966.
Rachel Mwanza is an actress from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, best known for her performance as Komona in the 2012 film War Witch (Rebelle). Prior to being cast in the film, she was homeless and living on the streets of Kinshasa.
Monique Spaziani is a Canadian actress. She is a three-time Genie Award nominee for Best Actress, receiving nominations at the 3rd Genie Awards in 1982 for Happy Memories , at the 7th Genie Awards in 1986 for The Alley Cat and at the 10th Genie Awards in 1989 for The Revolving Doors .
Andréanne Lafond was a Canadian journalist living and working in Quebec, best known as a host for Radio-Canada television.
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is a 2017 Canadian drama film directed by Simon Lavoie and starring Marine Johnson, Antoine L'Écuyer and Jean-François Casabonne. Lavoie also wrote the screenplay. An adaptation of Gaétan Soucy's novel of the same name, the film centres on Alice Soissons, a girl raised to believe she is a boy, who lives in with her father and brother in oppressive and secluded conditions. When her father dies, she ventures into the village, where outsiders tell her she is female, and she fears the family home is now under threat.
The 4th Canadian Film Awards were presented on April 27, 1952 to honour achievements in Canadian film.
The Music Master is a Canadian drama film, directed by Fedor Ozep and released in 1945. The first full-length feature film ever produced by a commercial studio in Quebec and the first film in Canada's post-World War II "boom" in filmmaking, the film's main characters are estranged brothers Paul and Pierre Dupont, who emigrated to Quebec from France in their youth; Paul has grown up to be a church organist, of modest means but beloved by his family and community, while Pierre has become a wealthy businessman, but is unmarried and isolated. The film's plot centres on their reunion for the first time since going their separate ways to pursue their different dreams.
A Man and His Sin is a Canadian drama film, directed by Paul Gury and released in 1949. Adapted from Claude-Henri Grignon's 1933 novel Un homme et son péché, the film stars Hector Charland as Séraphin Poudrier, the wealthy but miserly mayor of the village of Sainte-Adèle, Quebec, Nicole Germain as Donalda Laloge, a village resident who was given in marriage to Séraphin as payment for a family debt even though she is actually in love with her boyfriend Alexis Labranche, and Ovila Légaré as the village priest Antoine Labelle.
Curse of Aurore is a 2020 American horror film written by Llana Barron & Mehran C. Torgoley, and directed by Mehran C. Torgoley. It is presented as found footage on a USB flash drive found in a dark web mystery box that was sent to popular YouTuber, Casey Nolan of Mindseed TV.
