Myths, knowledge, truths
Through the fine line between myths, knowledge and truths, the 22nd edition of FIFEQ-Montréal explores mythologization as a collective construction that runs through our societies, our imaginaries, and our ways of seeing the world. Mythologization as a universal social and anthropological practice that allows us to articulate and understand the complexity of the real, collectively and individually.
Ethnographic cinema, both a tool of knowledge and representation, has historically positioned itself within a scientific approach to objectifying reality, while being caught in the tensions and contradictions of the false duality between myth and truth. Developed during the colonial era, the politics of ethnographic filmmaking contributed to a fabrication of otherness, images that constructed certain truths as much as they imposed them.
In a post-truth world where the line between true and false feels increasingly fictitious, which narratives become visible, credible or legitimate? And what do they reveal about the power relations that run through them? The programme invites a shift in perspective between real and fiction, knowledge and belief, memory and imagination. Not to settle the question but to ask: which myth do I hold onto?
May 6 to 9, 2026 · Montréal
“Works that cross the mirror between myth and truth, engaging us to untangle the contexts of each.
We propose to carry the concept of myth beyond the binary of true and false.
The aim is rather to question what role mythological construction
plays in the systems we find ourselves in.
How do knowledge and power intertwine in the form
of myth and fiction to “create the effect of reality”?(Achille Mbembe)
What is the role of memory in this construction of reality?
What myths make up our worlds? What do they reveal about our relationships?
As the civilizational myth begins to crumble, what myths for today, what myths for tomorrow?
Cinema, as a desiring machine, continuously produces myth. Situated at the junction of dreams, anxieties and the desires of the many, it appears to us that cinema is not innocent.
Which myth do I hold onto?”
This text was created as an “exquisite corpse” by the members of the FIFEQ 2026 organizing committee.
About
The Festival International du Film Ethnographique du Québec (FIFEQ) was born in 2003 on the initiative of a group of students in visual anthropology from the University of Montreal. This one-of-a-kind festival, free for the public, is one of the few platforms for the distribution and promotion of ethnographic cinema in Canada. Thanks to the generous volunteering of hundreds of students from Concordia, McGill and UofM Universities, industry professionals, film lovers and numerous partners, FIFEQ has brought together several thousands of spectators, driven by a common passion for cinema, visual anthropology, or, simply, by the curiosity to discover gems of the ethnographic genre.
What is an ethnographic film ?
Ethnographic film, often considered a sub-genre of the documentary, is in fact a cinematographic genre in its own right, belonging to the “cinema of the real” tradition and anchored in intimacy and proximity. It can take documentary, fiction or experimental forms. It is, further, an original cinematic genre characterized by an approach aimed at apprehending reality and human experiences as they are experienced by the filmmaker, anthropologist, or protagonists. This approach is that of ethnography, which consists of an immersion in an environment over a long period of time. The purpose of ethnographic films is not to explain a reality, as an informative or militant documentary does, but rather to illustrate it or make it “felt”. Its forms are multiple and aim at presenting everyday and ordinary experiences from new, artistic and scientific perspectives - in other words, at admiring the banality of our humanity in all its diversity and universality.