Experience

Québec Film Week's unprovincial pleasures

The “other” Canada, French-speaking province Québec, suffers no inferiority complex when it comes to filmmaking. It generates arthouse megahits like the ’70s coming-of-age flashback C.R.A.Z.Y. and mainstream ones like bilingual comedy Bon Cop, Bad Cop, which last year became the highest-grossing domestic release ever—surpassing even the original Porky’s. (Yes, Porky’s was officially all-Canadian, though it scrupulously avoided seeming so in order to crash the U.S. market.)

Oft overlooked abroad (in the U.S., we’ve tended to treat Canada entire as the harmless but generally ignorable neighbor), Québec’s thriving regional cinema is showcased in San Francisco Film Society’s latest mini-festival addition to the annual Bay Area movie calendar. Québec Film Week, which starts tonight, offers five days and eight features at the Opera Plaza that encompass the best of recent Québecoix moviemaking—plus one archival flick generally considered the entire nation’s greatest feature ever.

topics: canadian film, features, film festivals, san francisco film society, world cinema