Presented only in theatres
Across time and diverse landscapes, four characters weave a tapestry of stories exploring human resilience in the face of environmental upheaval. Marie, a young mother tormented by an obsessive and heartrending question about her child’s future, channels her anxiety into passionate activism. Terence, a climate refugee, entrusts his fate to strangers, hoping to find asylum in the north. McKenzie, a state security officer, breaks free from the system’s chains to reclaim control over their destiny and finally feel alive. Finally, Kira, a soldier, deserts the army to join a nomadic tribe, the guardians of humanist values. In this innovative photo film by François Delisle, the journeys of these four characters intertwine through striking imagery, offering a profound reflection on the challenges of the climate crisis. Le Temps, a fable on climate change, transcends artistic boundaries and fosters a necessary dialogue between our past, present, and future.
Director’s statement :
In the last few years, escalating debates on climate change and its consequences have led to a resurgence of the future in the public realm. We’ve never focused harder on what the world could be like in 2050, 2060 and beyond. Despite all that, how can we explain that nothing is being done to fight climate warming, or nothing worthy of the coming disasters ? So, in a world caught between hegemony and survival, where frivolity overrides needs, where we confuse pleasure with happiness, where we’re all talk and no action, isn’t it time that we imagined something new to help us get back on our feet and avoid losing hope? While for decades science has been raising the alarm about the state of the planet, I believe that art must make a commitment to provide us with a culture of resistance by building new narratives. The numbers from scientific studies and weather reports must now be embodied and experienced through the senses.
In the current battle that was unleashed by climate change, we can no longer just inform; we have to deliver a gut-punch to viewers. There’s a difference between knowing and feeling. What you may hear idly or in a moment of distraction can leave you cold. But when you feel something, when it really hits you, it could inevitably turn out to be painful. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish with Waiting for the Storms: that viewers are carried away by the images and the voices, that they are drawn into the film and ultimately grabbed by the guts. Beyond aesthetic and political considerations, I can help them fix their gaze on what they usually turn away from and, ultimately, provoke and encounter. With this film, I want to speak to their intelligence, but also to their guts and their fists. In short, I want to provoke, if not shake things up for good. That is why Waiting for the Storms exists.
- François Delisle
In the presence of director François Delisle and distributor Stéphanie Demers on March 21st in Montreal.
Across time and diverse landscapes, four characters weave a tapestry of stories exploring human resilience in the face of environmental upheaval. Marie, a young mother tormented by an obsessive and heartrending question about her child’s future, channels her anxiety into passionate activism. Terence, a climate refugee, entrusts his fate to strangers, hoping to find asylum in the north. McKenzie, a state security officer, breaks free from the system’s chains to reclaim control over their destiny and finally feel alive. Finally, Kira, a soldier, deserts the army to join a nomadic tribe, the guardians of humanist values. In this innovative photo film by François Delisle, the journeys of these four characters intertwine through striking imagery, offering a profound reflection on the challenges of the climate crisis. Le Temps, a fable on climate change, transcends artistic boundaries and fosters a necessary dialogue between our past, present, and future.
Director’s statement :
In the last few years, escalating debates on climate change and its consequences have led to a resurgence of the future in the public realm. We’ve never focused harder on what the world could be like in 2050, 2060 and beyond. Despite all that, how can we explain that nothing is being done to fight climate warming, or nothing worthy of the coming disasters ? So, in a world caught between hegemony and survival, where frivolity overrides needs, where we confuse pleasure with happiness, where we’re all talk and no action, isn’t it time that we imagined something new to help us get back on our feet and avoid losing hope? While for decades science has been raising the alarm about the state of the planet, I believe that art must make a commitment to provide us with a culture of resistance by building new narratives. The numbers from scientific studies and weather reports must now be embodied and experienced through the senses.
In the current battle that was unleashed by climate change, we can no longer just inform; we have to deliver a gut-punch to viewers. There’s a difference between knowing and feeling. What you may hear idly or in a moment of distraction can leave you cold. But when you feel something, when it really hits you, it could inevitably turn out to be painful. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish with Waiting for the Storms: that viewers are carried away by the images and the voices, that they are drawn into the film and ultimately grabbed by the guts. Beyond aesthetic and political considerations, I can help them fix their gaze on what they usually turn away from and, ultimately, provoke and encounter. With this film, I want to speak to their intelligence, but also to their guts and their fists. In short, I want to provoke, if not shake things up for good. That is why Waiting for the Storms exists.
- François Delisle
In the presence of director François Delisle and distributor Stéphanie Demers on March 21st in Montreal.
| Director | François Delisle |
| Director of Photography | François Delisle |
| Production | François Delisle |
| Music director | Robert Marcel Lepage |
| Artistic Direction | Geneviève Lizotte |
| Editing | François Delisle |
| Sound mixing | Bernard Gariépy Strobl |
In Partnership with
Present in these collections
Session
• Cinéma du Musée - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings
Friday, march 21, 2025, 07:30 p.m. — 09:04 p.m.
Production
François Delisle
Born in Montreal in 1967, François Delisle began his career by making short films between 1987 and 1991. His first feature, “Ruth” (1994), had critics raving and made a name for the director in Canada and Europe. In 2003, after founding his production company Films 53⁄12, he produced his second film, “Happiness is a sad song” (2004), which won several awards and brought him international acclaim. His next two films, “You” (2007) and “Twice a woman” (2010), had a similar reception. “The meteor” (2013) and “Chorus” (2015) screened at the Sundance and Berlin festivals. Both films were major international hits, screening at festivals and theaters in many countries around the world. In 2019 and 2020, Delisle directed “Cash nexus”, his seventh feature, and then “CHSLD”, a documentary short about his mother in her twilight years. For over 30 years, François Delisle has been exploring the human condition through a personal, uncompromising cinema.
Biographical notes provided by the film production team
Biographical notes provided by the film production team
Selected films:
CHSLD (2020)
Cash nexus (2019)
Chorus (2015)
Le météore (2013)
2 fois une femme (2010)
CHSLD (2020)
Cash nexus (2019)
Chorus (2015)
Le météore (2013)
2 fois une femme (2010)
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