
Acting
Micheline Lanctôt (born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian actress, film director, screenwriter, and musician. Lanctôt was born in Frelighsburg, Quebec. Her post-secondary education was in music, fine arts, and theatre at Collège Jésus-Marie in Outremont, and in art history at the Université de Montréal and the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal; she later studied film animation at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and then at Gerald Potterton's studios, Potterton Productions, where she remained for four years. Lanctôt began her acting career in 1972, winning a Canadian Film Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Gilles Carle's The True Nature of Bernadette (La vraie nature de Bernadette). Since then, she has appeared in a wide variety of film and television roles, such as Carle's The Heavenly Bodies (Les Corps Célestes), Ted Kotcheff's award-winning The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Claude Chabrol's Blood Relatives and Guy Fournier's Radio-Canada TV series Jamais deux sans toi. She has directed for the theatre also, directing Oleanna by David Mamet for the Théâtre de Quat'Sous in Montreal in 1994, and in 1999, Bousille et les justes by Gratien Gélinas for the Théâtre du Rideau Vert. She began her live-action film-directing career with The Handyman (L'Homme à tout faire) (1980), nominated for best direction and for best film at the Genie Awards in 1981. This success was followed by Sonatine (1984), which launched the career of Pascale Bussières and won both the Genie Award for Best Director at the 6th Genie Awards in 1985, and the now-defunct Silver Lion for Best First Film (1983-1987) at the 41st Venice International Film Festival. Since 1982, Lanctôt has been a part-time instructor in the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University. Lanctôt defended Gaétan Soucy's novel The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches (La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes) in the 2004 edition of Le Combat des livres, broadcast on Première Chaîne. In 2016 she was the curator of the Festival Vues dans la tête de... film festival in Rivière-du-Loup. She is also a matron of the Prix collégial du cinéma québécois, an annual program engaging film studies students in Quebec CEGEPs to present an award for the year's best Quebec film.

Diane Messier lives on a farm in the Eastern Townships, near the American border, with her daughter Sarah and her two sisters, Carmen and Julie. Following a tragic accident, Diane feels constantly threatened and even believes her house is haunted. Worried by her daughter's actions, Angèle returns from Florida to bring comfort to Diane and try to reunite the family clan.

Sophia is a philosophy professor in Montreal and has lived as a couple with Xavier for 10 years. Sylvain is a carpenter in the Laurentians and must renovate their country house. When Sophia meets Sylvain for the first time, it’s love at first sight. Opposites attract, but can it last?

A Montreal police inspector cracks a murder case with clues from the victim's diary.

When Sarah has a chance to go to a first class university and to join its premiere athletic club, her suburban mother is fearful of the change and refuses to help financially. But Sarah's roommate knows that they will get a grant if they marry. Sarah agrees but only to discover that her true heart lies elsewhere. Sarah prefers to run.

Jean-Charles has an unusual relationship with his mother. He can't break free of her influence even when writing his master's thesis, made up of interviews with the several hundred men who have slept with her. Jean-Charles can identify -- he's one of them. But the incestuous bond between mom-and-son is jeopardized when Jean-Charles meets Cassandra, and Mom shifts her attentions to a hot young stud in retaliation.

Bernadette has a yen to chuck it all and go back to nature, in this French-language Canadian film. That's just what she does after carefully leaving her wedding ring where her affluent husband, a lawyer, can see it. She has bought a farm, complete with a run-down farmhouse and a live-in cranky old man. Soon, because of the wonderful effects that her sympathy and her outsider's perspective have, her neighbors perceive great improvements in their lives. They attribute these changes to something miraculous (perhaps taking a cue from her name), and hordes of needy people descend on her farm.

After the murder of his wife Alexis is devastated. He withdraws all his savings and embarks on a journey from which he does not think he will return. His meeting with Daphne makes the escape through Tartary even crazier.

A pimp and his seven working girls move to a small conservative mining town in northern Quebec to establish a brothel.

A philandering wife and a sleazy womanizing con-man team up to off a troublesome father-in-law in this acid-tinged French Canadian black comedy. Leon, the con-artist makes his living cheating Catholic bingo players by hosting bogus religious pilgrimages. He is involved with a woman, but that doesn't stop him from getting involved with the frustrated Sophie who hates living in a tiny apartment with her lazy husband, her ever-gloomy teenage daughter and her husband's demanding, self-centered father, Emile. Sophie is so desperate to escape and start a new life that she convinces Leon to help her kill Emile who allegedly has $150,000 tucked away. The murder is to occur during one of Leon's pilgrimages. He convinces his son Paolo, an ex-con, to assist. Despite their careful planning, nothing prepares the would-be killers for the surprising result.

The disjointed story of Anne-Marie, an unemployed publicist pounding the pavement in Montreal with her mini-cam, collecting testimonials on the subject of happiness. She meets a medley of characters whom she engages in engrossing, thought-provoking discussions.

In the dead of a cold Montreal winter, lonely, recently divorced Robert Filion learns his father has died in Florida. Robert and his son Maxime, travel to Florida for the funeral and then set out from Dixie with his late father's car for the return trip to Montreal.

Suzie, a 58 year old depressed taxi driver on the night shift. On Halloween, she finds a 10 year old autistic boy in the back seat of her taxi with 50$ and an address. As Suzie arrived at the father's address, she realizes the mess this family is in. This child and her own troubled past lead her down a surprising road.

Two teenaged friends have separate difficult experiences that make the girls seriously consider suicide.

Two teenaged friends have separate difficult experiences that make the girls seriously consider suicide.



Suzie, a 58 year old depressed taxi driver on the night shift. On Halloween, she finds a 10 year old autistic boy in the back seat of her taxi with 50$ and an address. As Suzie arrived at the father's address, she realizes the mess this family is in. This child and her own troubled past lead her down a surprising road.


Lucie sees Eloi, a homeless man, freezing to death in the alley, and takes him in. Living together proves to be difficult until Lucie's charity restores Eloi's humanity and her emotional maturity.

Men struggle with day-to-day tasks in a world where all of the women have disappeared.
