HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 43^rd EDITION OF LE FIFA

FIFA CONNEXIONS’ professional days are thriving more than ever, driven by the growing commitment of passionate participants and partners eager to shape meaningful, forward-looking encounters. Positioned at the innovative crossroads of the arts and culture sectors, these days — featuring talks, roundtables, workshops, and screenings — stand out as an inclusive space that embraces a diversity of voices and perspectives, fostering dynamic and open dialogue.

FIFA CONNEXIONS offers a unique opportunity for cultural broadcasters and producers, artists, platform managers, festival directors, and all those active in the cultural ecosystem to build and nurture valuable local and international connections.

Once again, the Théâtre Outremont hosted a marathon of screenings as eclectic as they were moving. Short films and dance videos pulsed through a bold and vibrant program that brought together artists from near and far. From the raw choreographic power of Chorale to the delicate intimacy of À bras le corps, each work celebrated the moving body as a universal language. It was an immersive, generous night where dance became the beating heart of FIFA.

La Nuit du court offered an intense journey through more than twenty short films from around the globe. Presented in partnership with Courts d’un soir, this special evening at Concordia’s Henry F. Hall Building celebrated the short film in all its narrative and visual richness.

From the reinvention of cultural icons to the exploration of intimate or dystopian worlds, each piece pushed the boundaries of cinematic art with bold creativity. A vibrant night where imagination unfolded in luminous fragments — echoing long after the final frame.

True to its mission of breaking down boundaries between formats, cultures, and imaginations, FIFA once again opened its screens to curatorial perspectives. This 43^rd edition offered cartes blanches to powerful voices exploring the edges of the visible, experimental memory, and poetic bridges between territories.

Carte blanche to the Centre Pompidou: What an honour it was to host three thematic programs featuring films from the Musée national d’art moderne Centre Pompidou collection — curated by Jonathan Pouthier, Head of Programming for the film collection at the museum, in Paris. From Sophie Calle’s road trip to Joëlle de la Casinière’s documentary essay, the structural cinema of Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy to Andrew Kötting’s filmed performance, questions of representation — of self, other, or elsewhere — wove subtly through these sessions, mostly composed of recent acquisitions. Brilliant!

With Rien à voir: Filming the void, the absence, the invisible, Paul Rothé presented a chiaroscuro program where cinema becomes a way to sense the unspeakable. From Marguerite Duras to Elias Bötticher, this screening brought together silences and the ghosts of reality, between spectral Paris and inverted imagery.

Parcours / Pathways, curated by Jean-Claude Bustros for Concordia University’s 50^th anniversary, traced the genealogy of experimental cinema in Montreal. From cult avant-garde works to recent explorations, this carte blanche spotlighted Concordia’s enduring impact on independent filmmaking.

Finally, Isabella Cichero marked the 80^th anniversary of Gabriela Mistral’s Nobel Prize with Migrer les Idées, a vibrant tribute to the power of poetic voice and cultural engagement. This program expanded the festival’s horizon, allowing voices from the Global South to resonate with grace and determination.

Each carte blanche was a window into new ways of seeing, feeling, and sharing the world.

For its 43^rd edition, FIFA launched a project that had long been close to its heart: Indigeneities of the Americas. This ambitious, transcontinental initiative — developed in collaboration with festivals Fotogenia (Mexico), Dart (Chile), and ARCA (Uruguay) — aimed to celebrate the vitality of Indigenous cinema through a program co-created with artists and curators from the First Peoples of the Americas.

From Canada to Chile, through Uruguay, Mexico, the United States, and Brazil, this inaugural edition presented a rich mosaic of powerful stories, where ancestral traditions and contemporary forms intertwine to restore voice, memory, and life to the land.

Conceived as a traveling project, Indigeneities of the Americas will continue throughout the year within our partner festivals — an ongoing invitation to listen, see, and share the world differently.

Once again this year, the Local Films collection was a cornerstone of our programming — a vibrant tribute to filmmakers from here, their singular visions, and their powerful storytelling.

Each screening was a moment of shared connection, enriched by meaningful conversations between artists and an attentive, curious, and engaged audience. It offered a chance to discover deeply human works — rooted in our land, yet open to the world.

Several films stood out and left a lasting impression:
🎬 Cozic by Étienne Desrosiers and Céline B. La Terreur
🎬 L’Avenir by Emmanuel Schwartz (Winner – Best Canadian Feature Film)
🎬 Le temps by François Delisle
🎬 R. Roussil, le cul par terre by Maxime-Claude L’Écuyer
🎬 So Surreal: Behind the Masks by Neil Diamond and Joanne Robertson (Special Mention – Canadian Feature Film)
🎬 À la lumière du soir by Fernand Dansereau

These are just a few highlights from a bold and inspiring lineup. With this collection, FIFA reaffirms its strong commitment to local artists — whose sensitivity, creativity, and courage deserve to be celebrated.

Thank you to the filmmakers for your trust, and to the audience for your curiosity, passion, and beautiful presence.

What a joy it was to celebrate music in all its forms through this vibrant, daring, and generous collection! Whether experimental, popular, orchestral, or electronic, music proved once again to be a powerful vehicle for emotion, memory, and resistance.

Several works left a strong impression this year:

🎼 Flore Laurentienne à Saint-Pacôme by Guillaume Monette transported us into the sensitive, contemplative world of Mathieu David Gagnon, through an intimate performance that poetically wove together soundscapes and the Quebec landscape.

🎤 Antoine Corriveau: Pastorale + Oiseau de nuit by Francis Leclerc offered a hybrid, immersive experience blending music and introspective science fiction.

🎧 DJ Mehdi: Made in France by Thibaut de Longeville electrified the room with the meteoric story of a beatmaking pioneer, bridging French hip-hop and electronic music.

🥁 Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat by Johan Grimonprez — winner of the Best Essay Award — moved audiences with its layered narrative of archival footage, jazz, and postcolonial struggle.

🎬 Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself by François Nemeta plunged us into the wildly inventive universe of a giant of music videos and cinema, where every image becomes rhythm, creativity, and poetry.

🎻 Beethoven’s Nine: Ode to Humanity, by Larry Weinstein, an epic tribute to human brotherhood, offered both grandeur and nuance, while also questioning the complex legacy of this masterpiece.

And these are just a few highlights from a rich and multifaceted selection. They were accompanied by many other equally compelling works that sparked meaningful conversations between artists and audiences. This wide range of perspectives, formats, and cultural influences reminds us just how endless the world of music can be — ready to be heard, seen… and felt.

The 43^rd edition of FIFA gave pride of place to architecture, with a rich and compelling collection of films that captivated audiences through their sensitive explorations of space, material, and the ways we inhabit the world. The highlight of this edition was the exceptional presence of the duo Bêka & Lemoine, whose visit made a lasting impact!

The festival awarded them a Tribute Prize, celebrating a cinematic body of work that, for over 15 years, has been reinventing the way architecture is portrayed on film.

Not only did they offer the brilliant gift of a masterclass on the art of Filming Architecture, but they also generously presented their film ​“The Sense of Tuning”, which had its North American premiere at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The screening offered a poetic and spontaneous journey into the world of architect Bijoy Jain and the city of Mumbai, allowing audiences to experience their intuitive, sensory approach — situated at the crossroads of performative experience and documentary.

The full architecture collection offered a rich exploration of the relationships between space, the body, and the image, featuring perspectives from artists both local and international — firmly affirming the importance of this field within FIFA’s programming.

Engaging discussions with the public, and inspiring exchanges with architects, filmmakers, and thinkers enriched this section, which powerfully demonstrated that, when filmed with sensitivity, architecture can become a universal language of sensation and ideas.

FIFA 43 kicked off with a bang, offering an opening night that blended imagination with social impact. Agathe Feoux’s short film ​“Consentir à” (France) moved audiences with its poetic political voice and powerful reflection on algorithms and consent, while François Nemeta’s ​“Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself” (France) immersed viewers in the whimsical, visionary world of the iconic filmmaker.

With both directors in attendance, theatres in Montreal and Quebec City were packed — setting the tone for a particularly vibrant and luminous 43^rd edition!

The 43^rd edition of FIFA came to a close at the Cinéma du Musée with the screening of ​“Une journée (extra) ordinaire, 24h à l’Opéra Garnier” by Priscilla Pizzato. This immersive, poetic, and rhythmically paced documentary offered a final, fascinating journey into the heart of this temple of illusion, bringing us closer to those who bring it to life each day.

The theatre was packed, the emotion tangible — this rare opportunity to step inside such a legendary space was followed by heartfelt exchanges that extended the magic of the screening… before giving way to a warm and festive cocktail. One last drink, one last smile — and already, the desire to do it all again.