22nd edition

Indigenous Futures: Memory, Territory, and the Future — Cinéma Moderne, Thursday May 7, 2026 l 17h30-20h

Co-presented with Isuma and Wapikoni Mobile, this screening opens a space of encounter with works that explore the connections between territory, memory, transmission and futurity. Through documentary, experimental and poetic forms, the films gathered offer plural Indigenous perspectives rooted in lived experience, cultural survivance and the invention of possible futures.

This programme is deeply connected to the editorial line of this 22nd edition: it questions how myths and truths are constructed within colonial societies that privilege certain voices over others. Memory becomes here a tool of resistance and openness, toward circular temporalities and futures shaped as much by the legacies of the past as by new possibilities.

The programme is built around Mobilize by Caroline Monnet (NFB) and Aki by Darlene Naponse, co-presented with Isuma, accompanied by two short films in collaboration with Wapikoni Mobile, for a screening that aims to make images into passages between times, narratives and communities.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with invited artists and filmmakers.

Doors open: 5:00 p.m.
Screenings: 5:30 p.m.

Retrospective: auto-ethnography
— Cinéma Public, Friday May 8, 2026 l 17h

Comment vs dirais-je ? How would I tell u ? Louis Dionne (32min)
Birthday Suit with Scars & Defects Lisa Steele (13min)

What happens when the camera turns inward – toward the self, toward loved ones, toward the body and its histories? This retrospective screening explores that question through two works that make the ethnographic gesture an intimate and political act.

Birthday Suit with Scars & Defect by Lisa Steele (1974): to mark her 27th birthday, Steele stands naked before the camera and presents the scars that have marked her body since birth. A simple, radical gesture that transforms personal testimony into cultural archive.

Both films cross the boundary between testimony and auto-ethnography, revealing personal narratives as embedded in complex historical and cultural processes. As Catherine Russell writes in Experimental Ethnography: “Identity is no longer a transcendental or essential self that is revealed, but a ‘staging’ of subjectivity – a representation of the self as a performance.”

These works invite us to question authenticity within anthropological production, and the counter-myth they represent against the dominant visual productions of their time. The screening will be followed by a discussion between Joëlle Rouleau, professor of film studies at the Université de Montréal, and Louis Dionne, director of Comment vs dirais-je?

Doors open: 4:30 p.m.
Screenings: 5:00 p.m.

Creation workshop — Lumière Collective, Friday May 8, 2026 l 11h
(12 participants maximum)

At FIFEQ, the democratization of visual anthropology and ethnographic cinema is at the heart of our approach. In this spirit, we offer each year a creation workshop open to all – an invitation to explore, through practice, the gestures that make up ethnographic filmmaking.

This year, the workshop focuses on personal myth. Far from being a practice reserved for the initiated, myth surrounds and shapes us through our families, communities and daily habits. We are constantly narrating ourselves, and the objects we choose to display or keep close bear witness to our relationship with the world. It is through these traces : objects, images, fragments of everyday life that we invite you to explore the layers of personal mythology that make us who we are.

Inspired by Les choses d’une vie : Archéologie de l’intime, one of the films in this year’s programme, participants are invited to bring objects to form the basis of a collective exploration. The workshop will combine a conceptual ideation session, a time dedicated to image-making, and a collective debrief to guide the editing process. If time allows, the final result will be screened at the closing night.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own devices (phone, handycam, or any tool that forms the basis of their personal archive).

Field screening — Café-Restaurant Promenades Saint-Hubert, Thursday May 7, 2026 20h30

The screening is presented in collaboration with the Critical Media Lab.

For this off-site screening, FIFEQ sets up in the urban landscape. Inspired by the concept of the ethnographic field, the screening takes over the Café-Restaurant Promenades Saint-Hubert for one evening, blending the spectacle of the film with that of the city and blurring the line between passersby and audience.

This initiative is as much about democratization as it is about making a statement, by creating more spaces for connection and making ethnographic cinema a shared resource accessible to everyone. The films screened that evening specifically explore themes related to urban spaces, creating a natural dialogue between the images and the venue hosting them.É

Doors open : 8:00 p.m.
Screenings: 8:30 PM

Co-presented with Critical Media Lab

Closing night — Studio Proto, Saturday May 9, 2026

To close this 22nd edition, FIFEQ invites you to Studio Proto for an exploratory, sensory evening in three acts, pushing the boundaries of ethnographic film to its limits. Film, visual performance and audiovisual set take turns around a central question: within what frame does the myth of ethnographic cinema hold?

The evening begins in a warm, relaxed atmosphere with ambient music and Palestinian bites from Roots on site. A space to gather, talk and extend the encounters of the week. Feel free to bring your own drinks.

A selection of ethnofictional and experimental films starts the program, featuring Nice Coloured Girls and Nightwalker. Next, the ethnographic approach will be explored through the performance L’herbe des jours / Alaf-e Ayyam / The Grass of Days (voice and 16mm projection) by Mina Bahra, André Habib, Kiana Razavi Mastali, and Mohammad Reza Amiri, co-presented by Hors Champs. Drawing on ethnographic films archived at the University of Montreal, the performers will explore Iran by reworking the footage and interweaving it with Persian poetry.

The evening closes with an audiovisual set by Firas Nassri and MarsGod: music from Arab and world artists woven together with visuals drawn from the cultural and spiritual imaginaries of the Levant.

Doors open : 7 pm
Screenings and performance : 8:30 pm
Audiovisual set Levantine Archives : 9:30 pm