In the mid-1970s, Rico, a 9-year-old Haitian boy, was brutally torn from his native land along with Erzulie, his mother, to a strange planet called Canada. Since their arrival, a distance seems to have grown between mother and son. To regain the love of his mother, Rico will have to understand this New World populated by individuals with strange habits and customs. Fortunately for him, he can count on Kana, his imaginary friend who comes straight out of Haitian mythology.
Montreal, Winter 2002. Stéphane, 19 years old, fan of Metal, student in graphic design, dreams of becoming an illustrator. But for months he has been caught in a threatening spiral: he is addicted to games. Indebted, without an apartment, avoiding his friends to whom he owes money, Stéphane takes a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant in a major Italian restaurant in Montreal in order to get by. There, he will meet Bébert, a cook who burns the candle at both ends, and Greg, a waiter with disreputable actions. Will Stéphane make it through this new job or will he fall into a downward spiral of bad choices?
Noémie (15 years old) has lived in a youth center for three years. When she loses all hope of being taken back by her mother, Noémie runs away in search of meaning and freedom. She goes to join her friend Léa, a former member of the center, who introduces her to a gang of delinquents. Soon, she meets Zach there who quickly offers her to be an escort for a weekend. Recalcitrant at first, Noémie says yes.
March 12, 2020. COVID-19 has just been declared a global pandemic, confinement measures are being implemented all across the world. Fanny, Samuel, Marianne and Daniel, four Montrealers from very different backgrounds, must now adapt to this new reality. What they believe to be a temporary situation will turn into a long ordeal that will change their lives forever. Between reality and fiction, Première vague is a portrait of the first 100 days of the pandemic in the city of Montreal, Canada.
As a civil war shakes the Quebec province of Canada, Valerie is the sole survivor of a mass execution where her boyfriend is killed. Years later, she’s in a close relationship with her new partner, Gabriel. At the Long Term Care Center where she works as an orderly, she befriends Jeanne, an erudite and funny woman, dealing with an important physical handicap. Mixing realism and worrying strangeness, The Laugh presents a humane exploration of the survivor’s syndrome, the grieving process, the distance of time, the power of love, and the joy of being alive.
SCRATCH is a musical drama that follows Angelot, a young Haitian immigrant who, along with his parents and brother Frantz, arrives in Montreal during the ’90s. Frantz quickly got involved in gang-related crime while the father, Saurel, diligently drove a taxi and lived a life of dignity. Years later, Angelot is now the proud leader of the hip hop act Lights and Shadows. He’s taken over his brother’s enterprise while Frantz is in jail, using the illicit gains to finance the recording of their first studio album. One night, following a concert and what initially looks like a random barroom altercation, Angelot falls into a deep coma, during which occurs a flashback through time, detailing the roots of his derailment.
After an hockey game in Lac St-Jean, the National climbs into their bus and begins the long ride from Roberval to Quebec City. On one of the sharp curves around Mount Apica, catastrophe strikes. The bus slams into the mountain and half the players dies. Now the team faces its greatest challenge: rebuilding.
Benoit, an actor surviving on his barman wages, follows the advice of is his brother Frank - a former hockey player turned talent agent- and grows a beard to get a part in a dinner theatre play. Benoit's girlfriend Vicky, an ex dramaturge who now works as a librarian, finds it difficult to accept this latest development, as it will delay the couple's plan to purchase a condo from their friends Caro and Vincent, who manage a hair and beauty salon. But Benoit's beard seems to have magical powers: he suddenly has a great deal of success, while Vicky develops a mysterious allergy to her boyfriend's facial hair.
In 1950, in a small village called Northern Station, Samuel, a young mailman and his girlfriend, Évelyne, spend hours replying to letters that children have sent to Santa Claus. While delivering the letters on Christmas Eve, Samuel dies of cold in the forest. He finds himself in the magic land of Santa Claus, where he becomes an elf in charge of answering Santa’s mail. Fifty years later, Samuel opens a letter from Satia, a young girl from Northern Station who asks Santa Claus if he will save her grandmother, who is seriously ill. With the help of his friend, Howie, the young elf decides to go to the village for grant the child’s wish. However, it turns out that Satia’s grandmother is none other than Évelyne.