with Pascale Bussières and Alexis Martin
Organized by the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, in collaboration with the CHUM, this special screening will take place on Sunday, May 15 at 2 p.m. at the CHUM’s Amphithéâtre Pierre-Péladeau, in the presence of filmmaker Annabel Loyola and actress Pascale Bussières.
Inspired by the original manuscript Histoire du Montréal, kept at the Mazarine Library in Paris, City of a Dream retraces the history of the first 30 years of Montréal from Jeanne Mance’s point of view. Carried by the reading of Pascale Bussières and Alexis Martin, the documentary reveals that this manuscript, written 350 years ago, is the memoir of the founder of Montréal and the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, collected a year before her death.
Just like Jeanne Mance, Annabel Loyola was born in Langres, a department of Haute-Marne in France, before settling in Montréal. Her first film, A Mad Venture, in the Footsteps of Jeanne Mance, also devoted to the pioneer, became the starting point of a historical process that led to the official recognition of Jeanne Mance as the founder of Montréal in 2012.
City of a Dream will open in theatres at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée (Montréal), Cinéma Le Clap Ste-Foy (Québec City), and at La Maison du Cinéma (Sherbrooke) on May 27.
Montréal was initially the dream of people who believed in the possibility of creating a better world in New France. Who were those people? Which ideal did they pursue, and why? The answers can be found in a 17th century manuscript, allegedly the hidden memoir of Jeanne Mance. The filmmaker revisits this story in an original, personal way, highlighting how the past echoes the still current yearning to create a world with more humanistic values.
CITY OF A DREAM
With Pascale Bussières and Alexis Martin
Quebec. 2022. 74 minutes. Original French version (available with English subtitles).
Direction, research, script, narration: Annabel Loyola | Cinematography: Franck Le Coroller, Annabel Loyola | Editing: Annabel Loyola, with the help of Monique F. Fournier and Michel Langlois | Sound design and editing: Simon Plouffe | Sound recording: Marco Fania, Annabel Loyola | Mix: Bruno Bélanger | Original music: Fabienne Lucet | Production: Arabesque Films (Annabel Loyola) | Distribution: Arabesque Films
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