Movies: Claude Jutra

Set in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business....

An ordinary looking chair refuses to be sat upon....

A classic NFB documentary about the Golden Gloves boxing tournament, the Canadian amateur's hope for success in the boxing world. This Gilles Groulx film shows three Montreal boxers in training. In behind-the-scenes interviews they talk about their a...

A revealing look at the great Quebecois director who gave us such classic films as Mon Oncle Antoine, A toute prendre and Kamouraska: Power of Passion. Amidst the rise of French-Canadian identity and the political struggles of the '60s, Jutra was at ...

This short 1966 documentary dedicated "to all victims of intolerance” depicts the dawn of skateboarding in Montreal. A new activity frowned upon by police and adults, skateboarding gave youngsters a thrilling sensation of speed and freedom. This film...

An acerbic and surreal comedy about marriage and married life....

Three troubled couples attend a two day marital retreat in hopes of saving their marriages. Unbeknownst to them, their psychiatrist is not who they think he is....

A young singer-songwriter abandons his life in his hometown and moves to the city to make it big. He achieves fame, but it comes at a price....

They come in high-powered convertibles, with cameras and curiosity, to look at French Canada and French-Canadians. Their usual objective is Québec City, where they can soak up a bit of French culture without a trip to France. With an eye for humour, ...

In this French Canadian film, the lives of teenagers are examined in fantasy sequences and through the use of documentary interviews. Prompted by the filmmaker, nine teenagers individually act out their secret dreams and, between times, talk about t...

A man struggles with his identity, his life choices, his interracial relationship, and his latent homosexuality. A portrait of some young intellectuals in early sixties Montreal....

Made for the landmark anthology series, For the Record, Seer Was Here is an example of the bold dramatic programming made at the CBC in the mid-70s, while theatre director John Hirsch was serving as the head of the drama department. Saul Rubinek play...

When a sexually promiscuous young woman finds herself pregnant and unmarried her three brothers vow to find the man responsible and punish him for what they consider the rape of their sister....

In Quebec 40s, orphans or abandoned children are placed in a gigantic psychiatric hospital where children were locked. Were they sick? No, they simply had no family. To escape this oppressive universe, they created a parallel world: the institution's...

Following her father's puzzling disappearance, Kate and her city-bred companions brave the untamed backwoods in a desperate search for him. However, the harsh environment becomes a dangerous catalyst for their explosive mix of personalities, propelli...

Angie and Helen are in love. They live and work together designing women's evening wear in Vancouver. When Helen decides she wants to have a baby, the pair set out to find a suitable sperm donor....

In the early 1940's, Canada is a country at war and Florentine is a young woman, from a very poor family, looking for love. She meets two suitable men, a nice soldier from a good and wealthy family, and an ambitious self-centered engineer. She must d...

A writer, Kamouraska is based on a real nineteenth-century love-triangle in rural Québec. It paints a poetic and terrifying tableau of the life of Elisabeth d'Aulnières: her marriage to Antoine Tassy, squire of Kamouraska; his violent murder; and her...

A woman's peculiar religious convictions lead her on a self-destructive path....

I give a methodical account of my film work: the creation of new series (Lire, Trio, Avec Mariola), the shooting of a new feature film (Amours décolorées which will take ten years to edit) with Mariola San Martin....