In 1969, the director Jacques Gagné filmed this astonishing documentary, a veritable aesthetic and political project depicting the Quebec theatre scene of the late sixties. Prominent figures gather in roundtables interspersed with footage of dramatic scenes, which are veritable set pieces. Françoise Loranger, Jean-Claude Germain, André Brassard, Jean-Louis Roux, Michelle Rossignol, and their companions in an effervescent theatrical community elegantly and tastefully debate the future of the artform. An oddly eccentric and astute portrayal, which has lost none of its edge. 

A discussion will follow the screening.
Moderator Martin Faucher

Directed by Jacques Gagné, 1969, 112 min.
Produced by Office du film du Québec and executed by Les Films Claude Fournier Ltée. For the Ministère des Affaires culturelles 
Presented in association with Claude Fournier 

This documentary film is offered without edits from its original release. It contains social and cultural representations that are offensive. A scene involving the practice of blackface lasting 20 seconds occurs at the following timing: 53:36.

See the bibliographic record

Opening greeting

Joséphine Bacon is an Innu poet born in Pessamit, in 1947. She is deemed one of Quebec’s leading authors, and is also a film director and a songwriter. She has worked as a translator and interpreter for the elderly. Joséphine Bacon often states that she is not a poet, but that her nomadic and generous heart speaks a poetry-filled language carrying echoes from the elders who have played vital roles in her life. For her latest collection, Uiesh • Quelque part (2018), she was awarded the Prix des libraires in 2019.

In French

Born in France, 2Fik is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist of Moroccan descent. He is interested in photography, video works and, more recently, digital art. As an artistic director, photographer, model, and performer all at once, 2Fik plays with reality and questions the notions of gender, identity, belief, sexuality, and perceptions through his work.

In French

Linked to Romance ain’t dead, 2Fik!

After studying literature, Pierre Bastien taught at the Cegep level, before discovering contact improvisation and miming. While training in tai chi and neigong, he explored physical theatre with Otto Heise-Jensen and at the École Jacques Lecoq. Recently, he has discovered Authentic Movement and has been taking part in projects by choreographers Sarah Dell’Ava and Emmanuel Jouthe over the past three years.

In French
Linked to O₂

The founder of the Montreal-based collective House of Barbara, Elle Barbara, a multidisciplinary artist and vogue dancer of African descent, fights for trans and BIPOC rights through her art. All at once a DJ, a singer-songwriter, and a performer, she has taken part in festivals such as Lux Magna, POP, Slut Island, and the OFFTA. In 2018, the MAI – Montréal arts interculturels staged her show Elle’s Black Space Mission: An Afrodiasporic Odyssey, created with her musical group, Elle Barbara’s Black Space.

Elle Barbara will present her Salutation along with Fofo Barbara, a performer from the House of Barbara.

In French

Hanako Hoshimi-Caines
Performer and choreographer Hanako Hoshimi-Caines is currently guest co-curator of the Centre de Création O Vertigo (CCOV), along with Nate Yaffe. Her independent and collaborative works have been shown in Canada and internationally. Her latest work, titled Radio III and created in collaboration with Zoë Poluch and Elisa Harkins, premiered at the MAI (Montreal, arts interculturels) in June 2019.

Anne Caines
Mother of Hanako Hoshimi-Caines, Anne Caines is a life long community worker and activist. She is a founding member and the current coordinator of RECAA (Respecting Elders : Communities Against Abuse), an activist organization that works to counter elder abuse in ethno-cultural communities. RECAA uses the theatrical techniques found in Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre to enact and study scenes of abuse, which are performed in silence to overcome language barriers.

In French and English

Tommy “Sin’cere” Nuguid is a professional dancer that specializes in Krump and choreography. Additionally, he has trained in several street dance styles such as Hip-hop, Popping and Animation. He has appeared on many television shows and is one of the founders of “SankChewAir-E”; an online community that assists and inspires participants to achieve their aspirations through collective diligence within hip hop culture, including gaming, dance and daily life.

In English

Linked to Anima / Darkroom

An artistic consultant with the Festival TransAmériques since 2006, and its Artistic Director and Co-Executive Director since 2014, Martin Faucher has been actively contributing to the cultural life of Quebec for the past three decades as an actor, director, teacher and administrator in the performing arts milieu.

In French

Where are we? Where are we, really, at this very moment? The philosopher and political scientist Dalie Giroux chats with Innu sociologist and legal expert Pierrot Ross-Tremblay. These two authors and thinkers, bound by a deep friendship, take the time to locate us. Let us join them to reflect on the Earth and our entire species!

With Dalie Giroux + Pierrot Ross-Tremblay 
In French  

In the future that awaits us, which parts of our history will we turn to in order to break free from the cycles of dispossession? Which legacy, which past will we consider? The writer Robert Lalonde, who recently authored La reconstruction du paradis, does not forget easily. In this discussion with Martin Faucher, he seeks to build future memories.

With Robert Lalonde + Martin Faucher
In French 

In conversation with rapper Ashanti Mutinta, also known as BACKXWASH, Jordan Tannahill the creator of Declarations, shares his atheistic metaphysics and investigates the foundations of existence. United by music and their mutual quest for the sublime, these two liberated spiritualities come together.

With Jordan Tannahill + Ashanti Mutinta (alias BACKXWASH)
Moderator Andrew Tay

Linked to Declarations

What exactly is artistic labour worth? What is the place of art in our society? The pandemic has placed these crucial questions at the forefront of artistic practices. Formed in the summer of 2020, the La Pieuvre collective, which brings together independent artists, aims to revisit these issues and to question the highly subjective criteria currently used to evaluate art. Up until now, Katya Montaignac, Brice Noeser, and Enora Rivière, three artists working in the field of dance, have been exploring these issues around the ecology of performing arts by calling upon regular contributors. As part of the FTA, they now extend the circle to anyone interested in this necessary reflection that is beneficial to society at large.  

Hosted by Catherine Lalonde
With Edith Brunette + Shérane Figaro + Véronique Hébert + Sasha Kleinplatz
La Pieuvre is co-produced by Agora de la danse
In French 

With the play jeanne dark , Marion Siéfert develops a new kind of theatre: on stage and on Instagram, actress Helena de Laurens is engrossed in her own likeness, which she captures live in a true staging of self. The teenager she embodies addresses the pressing issues that consume her. Morality, sexuality, harassment, rumours on social media: she hijacks social taboos and uses the screen as a space for emancipation. The show will be broadcasted on the big screen, Marion Siéfert and Helena de Laurens will then join the Montreal audience for a discussion, from the Centre dramatique national d’Orléans. 

12:40 p.m.: Screening 
2:30 p.m.: Discussion 

Moderator Geneviève Bélisle, with Florence Lorimier-Dugas + Zéphyr Bielinski
In French 

Presented Hydro-Québec with the support of Institut français + Service de coopération et d’action culturelle du Consulat Général de France à Québec 

For Mohammad Al Attar, fiction is a valuable tool for releasing untold or unfinished stories. Author of poignant accounts in Aleppo. Portrait of an Absence, the Syrian playwright born in Damascus in 1980 creates theatre of resistance, prolific and well documented, now translated and performed around the world. In an interview punctuated by excerpts from his plays, he recounts his journey as a writer in exile, from the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011 until the present day. 

Moderator Martine Dennewald 
In English and French 

Presented with the support of Fondation Cole  

How to design a stage set, costumes or a show without participating in the ruin of the great planetary garden? Concerned about eco-responsibility in the performing arts, the Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec (APASQ) and the social economy organization Écoscéno are addressing this pressing issue by bringing together artists involved in an eco-design process. Drawing on their backgrounds and experience, they share solutions that can be implemented at the start of the design process for the materials used, in order to avoid burying them in a landfill, not to mention the significant expense and negative impact on the environment that such an approach entails.  

Moderator Anne-Catherine Lebeau (Executive Director, Écoscéno)
Guests Cynthia St-Gelais + Pierre-Étienne Locas + Cédric Delorme-Bouchard
In French 

Presented in association with Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec (APASQ) + Écoscéno 

Spearheaded by Jacob Wren, Sylvie Lachance, and Richard Ducharme, the interdisciplinary collective PME-ART has been exploring collaborative creation for more than two decades. To celebrate the publication of the French translation of Authenticity Is a Feeling: My Life with PME-ART (Un sentiment d’authenticité : ma vie avec PME-ART), five artists and past and present collaborators of the collective read short excerpts of Wren’s book, and give their own unique perspectives on his recollections of various performances. Together, they reflect on the joys and difficulties of collaborative creation. Translated into French by Daniel Canty and published by Triptyque, Un sentiment d’authenticité is a captivating blend of history, memoir, and performance theory. It tells the story of the collective’s ongoing dedication to the fragile but essential act of “being yourself in a performance situation.” This French translation is a unique testament to the bilingual approach characterizing their work. 

You can order Un sentiment d’authenticité : ma vie avec PME-ART here
and Authenticity Is a Feeling: My Life with PME-ART here .  

Presented by Jessie Mill 
Reading-Performance Martin Bélanger + Marie Claire Forté + Nadège Grebmeier Forget + Kamissa Ma Koïta + Elena Stoodley 

In French 

Last January, the choreographer Rhodnie Désir revisited the BOW’T TRAIL project, this time in her own city. Since 2013, this ambitious choreographic endeavour has taken her all across the Americas as she traced the journeys of peoples of African descent. In the midst of the revival of Black Lives Matter movement, the artist examines Montreal’s slave-owning legacy—an infamous oversight. In this extension of BOW’T-Tio’tia:ke, Rhodnie Désir sits down with the knowledge holders who inspired her in this excavation of memory.  

Moderator Angélique Wilkie
Guests Rhodnie Désir + Cecile Doo-Kingue + Jean-Robert Milord
In English and French 

Opening Event

1985 marked the first edition of the Festival de théâtre des Amériques. In a vacant lot at the corner of De Bleury St. and De Maisonneuve Blvd. that is now home to the National Film Board, Les Productions Ondinnok presented the Festival’s inaugural performance, He who bears the Grief of the World. A vindication of powerful Indigenous spirituality and imagination, the piece heralded the birth of Canada’s first francophone Aboriginal theatre. As part of its 35th anniversary celebrations, Ondinnok will reactivate key moments of this historic performance and its mingling of words and archival images, presented a stone’s throw away from where they originally reverberated.  

Produced by Productions Ondinnok 
Directed and performed by Dave Jenniss  
Opening Ceremony and Performance Catherine Joncas + Yves Sioui Durand 
Stage Manager and Technical Director Sarah Merrette-Fournier 

Presented in association with Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal

Closing Event

For 15 years, Martin Faucher has been travelling the world visiting various theatres. On his globetrotting journey, the art lover encounters historical events—from simple audience anecdotes to revolutionary upheavals. From Beirut to New York City and Berlin, he witnesses global transformations, as safety measures are deployed. He sees Lafayette Street fill with mourners in the wake of David Bowie’s death, and immerses himself in a cloud of teargas among the gilets jaunes. Martin Faucher turns an intimate gaze to the artistic scenes and sociopolitical arenas of an entire era. His work as Festival director is in keeping with his tireless and passionate interest in art, cities, and people.