The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) returns for its 22nd annual edition from November 14 to 24, 2019. This year, the festival is honouring two important documentarists: Franco-Colombian director Laura Huertas Millán and French filmmaker Luc Moullet.
Laura Huertas Millán - Toward a decolonized ethnography
A Colombian living in France, artist Laura Huertas Millán made several video artworks before committing to cinema. Trained at Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, as well as at the Fresnoy and the Beaux-Arts in Paris, she has created a body of work noted for its formal and conceptual depth. Her work draws on documentary, ethnography and the visual arts, and questions the conventions of all three. She began with a series on exoticism (Journey to a Land Otherwise Known, Aequador). Filmed in European botanical gardens and Colombia’s Amazon rainforest, these works combine science fiction with conquistadors’ and missionaries’ reports in order to deconstruct colonial representations of the so-called “New World.” She continued her work on decolonizing ethnography with a series of “ethnographic fictions” (Sol Negro, La Libertad, jeny303, The Labyrinth), in which the hybridization of genres and the use of fiction lead to liberation from the colonial gaze, the emancipation of subjects and the creation of new narratives. In this series of shorts, the subjects’ imagination and emotional universe guide the narrative and aesthetic approaches, beyond language.
Luc Moullet - One step forward, one step sideways
French filmmaker Luc Moullet began his career as a film critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, alongside members of the New Wave, of which he soon became, as a director, the enfant terrible. He went on to make ten features and more than 30 shorts from the 1960s through 2010s, a body of work as atypical as it is profound. Characterized by deadpan humour, critical and anti-authoritarian slant, DIY aesthetic and absurdist structure, Moullet’s films were lauded by his peers (Godard, Straub, Rivette). Despite an approach that some found disconcerting, Moullet built a prolific career through his many short and medium-length films. This retrospective will give audiences the chance to (re)discover the work of an on-location filmmaker, as much an amused bystander as a lucid observer, who has dissected the human comedy (Anatomie d’un rapport, L’empire de Médor, Barres), abandoned spaces (Terres noires, La cabale des oursins, La terre de la folie), consumerism (Genèse d’un repas, Toujours plus), the landscapes of rural France (Foix, Imphy), American cities (Le ventre de l’Amérique), and even the cinematic imagination (Une aventure de Billy le Kid). A satirical ethnographer and an adventurer of the banal, Luc Moullet has never stopped being an essential source of light in dark times.
Watch the trailer for the retrospectives at the 22nd RIDM:
Presales of RIDM passes
Starting August 21, early bird RIDM passes, good for all festival screenings (except opening night), will be on presale for the special price of $100,taxes included. Passes for students and seniors will be available for $96, taxes included. These discounted passes can be purchased from the RIDM website. Offer is valid until September 23.
Thanks to our partners for the retrospectives: Consulat général de France à Québec, Cinémathèque québécoise, Cinéma Moderne, MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image, 24 images and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Quebec’s only film festival dedicated to documentaries, the Montreal International Documentary Festival presents the best reality‐based films, including the works of established directors and new talents.
The 22nd annual RIDM will take place from November 14 to 24, 2019.
Information : www.ridm.ca / info@ridm.ca
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Attached: Photos of Laura Huertas Millán and Luc Moullet
The complete RIDM program will be announced at a PRESS CONFERENCE on Wednesday, October 23 at 10 a.m. at the Cinémathèque québécoise (335 De Maisonneuve Blvd. East) and will be posted online the same day.
To request interviews, screeners or visual material, please contact:
Caroline Rompré | pixelleX communications | 514-778-9294 |caroline@pixellex.ca