Avoiding the pitfalls of nostalgia, Paul Tana paints an endearing and nuanced portrait of the Italians of Montreal that mixes archival footage, fiction, personal testimonies and excerpts of a stage play. From the first waves of immigration of the early 20th century to the concert of young rock musician Aldo Nova, the film highlights with touches of humour the contradictions of Quebecois Italians; deeply torn between their attachment to their homeland and their need to be wholly accepted by quebecois society.
Thursday May 30th – 6pm – Tickets
Casa d’Italia
505 Rue Jean Talon E. – Montreal
”Caffè Italia, Montréal” by Paul Tana
Québec | 1985 | 111 min | French-Italian | Subtitles:French
With Paul Tana in attendance
Regards italiens de Montréal is a programme of three feature-length films by Italian-Quebec filmmakers who, in their own way, reflect on the memory and heritage of a community that has been at the very heart of the development of our beloved metropolis. Whether political, poetic or historical, the traces left by these men and women have become anchored in the city’s cultural DNA with a strength and vivacity that command as much respect as they are impossible to ignore today. While Trois camarades de Montréal listens to three octogenarians with unshakeable socialist convictions and a proud militant past, Le jardin de Pupa invites us to meet Nonna Pupa, a woman renowned for transforming an illegal rubbish dump into a botanical garden in the 1980s. Finally, Caffè Italia, Montréal, a multi-faceted time capsule, alternates between archive footage, personal accounts and fictional scenes to paint a rich portrait of an unprecedented emigration process, that of the Italian community to Quebec, from the Second World War until 1985, the year the film was produced.
Co-presented with Cinéma Public and Tënk as part of the Regards italiens de Montréal series.