49th Festival du Nouveau Cinéma
From October 7th to October 18th 2020
The Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal (FNC) offers a hybrid 49th edition, online and in theaters. As every year, festivalgoers will find the Nouveaux Alchimistes section in the programming. The section, dedicated to formal exploration, new approaches and experimental cinema, will present 8 audacious feature films including:
DAU. NATASHA
Ilya Khrzhanovsky | Jekaterina Oertel
Germany, Ukraine, UK, Russia
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Festival selection
Berlinale (Compétition)
Festival de Melbourne
Natasha, who manages the staff canteen of a top-secret research institute in Soviet Russia, sees her life turned sideways by the secret service. DAU. Natasha marks the first theatrical release of the films from the DAU franchise: a sprawling, hugely anticipated multimedia art installation that meticulously recreates life behind the Iron Curtain.
KHAMSIN
Grégoire Couvert, Grégoire Orio
France, Lebanon
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Festival selection
Torino Film Festival (Special Jury Prize)
In the heart of Beirut, musicians from the underground scene plug in their instruments and make them resonate everywhere. They discuss the fate of this country torn apart by war, corruption and instability.
LÚA VERMELLA
Red Moon Tide
Lois Patiño
Spain
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Festival selection
Berlin Forum
New Directors/New Films
Indie Lisboa
Rubio de Camelle is a diver who has recovered the bodies of about forty shipwrecked people lost at sea. A fantastic tale of treacherous waters, drowned sailors and imaginary stories that have survived until today..
MAGGIE’S FARM
James Benning
USA (silent)
QUEBEC PREMIERE
Festival selection
Berlinale Forum
A cinematic landscape composed of twenty-four fixed shots seems to house an enigma. James Benning, the great avant-garde filmmaker, returns with this unusual portrait from the California Institute of the Arts where he has been working for the past forty years.
NIGHT HAS COME
Peter Van Goethem
Belgium
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Festival selection
Fantastic Fest Austin 2019
DOK Leipzig
A dystopian society is threatened by a virus that infects the brain and obliterates memories. After harvesting and classifying its citizens’ memories in the guise of a remedy, the State forces them to comply.
REPUBLICS
Huw Wahl
UK
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Festival selection
CPH Dox
A visual poem spanning time and place that delves into the creation of phrases and images and how landscape is transformed by urbanization and demographics. Featuring the words of Scottish poet Stephen Watts.
LAST AND FIRST MEN
Jóhann Jóhannson
Island
QUEBEC PREMIERE
Festival selection
Berlinale Special
Note: Jóhann Jóhannson composed the soundtrack of Prisoners, Sicario and Denis Villeneuve’S Arrival.
In the very distant future, a super-evolved race of humans is on the verge of extinction, leaving behind only surreal monuments. Tilda Swinton’s voice guides this unparalleled journey in the only film by the late Icelandic composer, Jóhann Jóhannson.
TO THE MOON
Tadhg O’Sullivan
Irland
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Festival selection
Venice Days 2020
Telluride 2020
To the Moon is a film collage, a tribute to the Moon, composed of images from international archives and those taken by important cinematographers on the five continents; combined with literary fragments, it is accompanied by a remarkable soundtrack.
