A word from the artistic director

Artistic rebellion is no doubt the healthiest, most invigorating form of rebellion there is. Arching our backs against the established order, social conventions, and the dominant ideology can only have positive effects. After all, don’t artists’ revolts inevitably lead to creative acts? Fortunately, the spirit of sedition bears fruit.”

René Rozon, founder of Le FIFA (1999)


The World Is Ours

Four words. A statement. Maybe even a challenge.

In 2025, the world seems more elusive than ever. The narratives shaping our times oscillate between uncertainty and urgency, chaos and fault lines. Crisis after crisis looms, truth is hard to find, and the immensity of reality may seem utterly overwhelming.

But if the world is getting away, let’s take it back – not as a conquest but as a reinvention. Let’s crack things open, challenge the established order, reformulate what seems immutable. History has taught us that within disruption, new visions are born, new stories flourish, and new creations are even more essential. And who better than artists to sketch out these possibilities?

Through this 43^rd edition of the International Festival of Films on Art, we invite you to an exploration – a voyage through forms, gazes, resistances. Works about the present, of course, but also dialogues with history, for conceiving of the future also means understanding the past. From the intimate to the political, from abstraction to engagement, this program is a moving mapping of the issues that face us.

The present times tempt us to withdraw, to freeze with fear, or to let cynicism take over. But art is, and must always be, a free territory. A space where we can still think. Where we can still dream. Where we can still take action. Faced with simplistic short cuts, art imposes complexity. Faced with immovable discourses, it invents languages. Faced with silence, it responds with the brilliance of sensitivity.

So, yes. The world is ours. Not in the sense of possession, but in a dynamic of reinvention. The world is ours to question. To deconstruct. To reimagine. And, above all, to re-create together.

The Program

Architecture has always inspired filmmakers, artists, and documentary makers. This year, we are highlighting this fertile relationship with a program that embraces architecture, urban planning, and design. Eight feature-length films explore multiple facets, from portraits of celebrated architects – Arthur Erickson, Eileen Gray, and the Campana brothers – to designers of innovative projects, including LOT-EK, a firm that uses containers as the raw material for unique architectural and artistic spaces.

This year, Le FIFA is dedicating a special place to the extraordinary filmmakers Bêka & Lemoine, who will present The Sense of Tuning in international competition. During a master class at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, they will share their singular approach to making films about architecture. They will receive Le FIFA’s Prix hommage in recognition of their major contribution to cinema.

The Americas are another central focus of this edition. Because they are plural and complex, it’s high time for us to re-appropriate the term ​“American.” In this perspective, Le FIFA is inaugurating Indigeneities of the Americas, a program produced in collaboration with festivals in Mexico, Chile, and Uruguay, featuring indigenous filmmakers from North, Central, and South America. Composed in dialogue with indigenous curators and organizations, this selection will be previewed in Montréal before touring the Americas.

It’s impossible to talk about the Americas without mentioning the role of the United States on the global geopolitical stage. Two striking films explore how art has been used as a weapon of diplomacy. Soundtrack to the Coup d’État shows how the United States used jazz during the decolonization of the Belgian Congo, and Taking Venice reveals how the Venice Biennale has been exploited to spread American cultural influence. Another North American vision is offered by the photographer JR in Tehachapi, which probes how an art project affects a group of convicts in a high-security prison in California.

Brazil is highlighted in four feature-length films offering a wide-ranging portrait of the country. No More History Without Us re-establishes the voice of Amazonian peoples and investigates contemporary ecological issues. Ouvidor follows artists occupying an abandoned building in São Paulo, where they work together to create an active, engaged community. This is Ballroom explores voguing practices in São Paulo, a space of freedom and resistance for the queer community, and Balomania uncovers the clandestine world of hot-air balloons, a banned tradition with unexpected origins.

This year, Le FIFA also offers an immersion in Chilean culture, taking us beyond the movie theatre with two works chosen by Isabella Cichero, director of the Dart Chili festival. First, an outdoor screening near the Saint-Laurent metro station pays tribute to Gabriela Mistral, a great Chilean poet and the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1945. Then, a visual concert transports us to the Atacama Desert, where the sounds and light of the stars, captured by the ALMA Observatory, are transformed into an amazing aural and visual performance followed by a great eclectic, Latin-flavoured electro party.

Of course, Québec is also part of the Americas. Among the Québec must-sees, we will present the world premiere of François Delisle​’s latest film, Le Temps. A true work of art, it deploys an enthralling photographic narration to tell a dystopian story in which nature seems to play the starring role. Another high point will be Emmanuel Schwartz​’s most recent offering, L’Avenir, also a world premiere: a group of theatre students produces a show halfway between funerary ritual and happening. And yet another world première will be Fernand Dansereau​’s extraordinary film À la lumière du soir. At age 95, this great master of Québec documentary offers us a new work: his extraordinarily lucid gaze at time, memory, and transmission.

I must also mention Neil Diamond​’s film So Surreal: Behind the Masks, which relates the little-known story of the ceremonial masks of the Yup’ik (Alaska) and Kwakwaka’wakw (Northwest Coast) peoples. The film recounts the history of these cultural objects that found their way, via Western museums and collectors, from the remote lands of Turtle Island (North America) into the hands of European surrealists.

In this selection, we also celebrate major figures in visual art in Québec, with films dedicated to the art duo COZIC, who have made their mark on the contemporary art scene, and the sculptor Robert Roussil, whose unfettered monumental works redefined the landscape of Québec sculpture.

In classical music, several wonderful films punctuate this edition. We have portraits of two exceptional singers: the young and flamboyant Polish counter-tenor Jakub Józef Orliński and the French baritone superstar Ludovic Tézier. One fascinating documentary lifts the veil on Érik Satie, and another takes us backstage for a production of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, as war overtakes the concert performance. The Québec ensemble Collectif9, which combines classical music and media arts, also makes an appearance. Finally, we celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the Palais Garnier with Une journée (extra) ordinaire, 24h à l’Opéra Garnier, which transports us into life at the legendary Parisian opera house.

The festival will also feature other musical experiences. The outdoor screening of the concert Flore Laurentienne à Saint-Pacôme will be an immersive feast for the eyes and ears. Antoine Corriveau will preview his new album during a special session, accompanied by an original film directed by Francis Leclerc. Finally, the award-winning (from the Festival Canneseries and Victoires de la Musique, among others) documentary series DJ Mehdi – Made in France, tracing the career of the legendary DJ and producer, will be screened in its entirety on the big screen. You’ll fall in love with the world of this pioneer of French hip-hop and electro.

Le FIFA is also honouring cinema as an art on its own terms. To start with, Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself by François Nemeta offers an intimate look at the filmmaker’s work, from his early videos in the 1980s to his most recent creations. An exceptional Carte Blanche is devoted to the Pompidou Centre, which will offer three sessions of rare films from its collections. We’ll celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Concordia University with a session, curated by Jean-Claude Bustros, of art films related to Montréal. Groupe d’Intervention Vidéo, a standout in Québec experimental video, will also celebrate its 50^th anniversary in our FIFA Experimental section. Finally, Paul Rothé has made a selection of films that explore the cinema of absence, emptiness, and the invisible with filmmakers such as Marguerite Duras, Thanasis Trouboukis, and Théodora Barat.

Extraordinary women – Louise Bourgeois, Ana Blandiana, Carolyne Carlson, Niki de Saint Phalle, Emily Carr, Frosia, and Simone de Beauvoir – will be celebrated in films that testify to their huge impact on art, dance, thought, and creation. We will pay a special tribute to Dominique Lemieux.

Two major events complete this program: La Nuit de la danse, which returns for a fourth year with an exceptional selection of dance-film shorts, and the second edition of La Nuit du court, which features this year’s most interesting shorts on art. Two must-see film marathons.

Finally, a big innovation this year: OFFFFFFFIFFFFFFFA. This brand-new space is designed to host films that are out of the ordinary, unclassifiable, that require a special setting. This first edition is curated by David Combe, an expert in off-frame, off-line, off-zone, off-system, off-category, off-standard, off-everything. You get the picture.

To wrap up, and I could have started with this, a heartfelt thanks to our communities for your commitment and unwavering support, starting with our public partners, donors, and ambassadors, who believe in our mission and enable us to spread the word. Thanks also to our board of directors for its trust, to the entire festival team, to the 160 volunteers, to the spaces that generously host us, and to our suppliers and the diplomatic offices that guide us. A particular thanks to the committee of honour for the Benefit Auction and to the members of the Club des 40, who contribute actively to the development and perpetuation of Le FIFA.

And a huge thanks to the artists, filmmakers, and creators who have placed their trust in us for more than 40 years. And especially – especially! – we are forever grateful to our audiences. More of you every year, in theatres, online, during our tours in Québec and elsewhere, in universities, in rural regions, in cities – everywhere, all the time.

For we move forward together. We transform things together. Together we build a space where art can exist without compromise. We have the unprecedented good fortune to be surrounded by an inspiring community that pushes us to give the best of ourselves, to innovate, to dream big, and to share our passion with our expanding public.

Enjoy the festival!