For example, the notion, spread by CBC/Radio-Canada, that Quebecor has gained as much as $500M in public funds over the past three years is truly preposterous, having already been extensively debunked in various press releases and documents posted on our website. One only needs to know that, to come to this figure, CBC/Radio-Canada counted as a subsidy the price Quebecor paid for wireless spectrum bought from the government in 2008, even though the price we paid was actually higher than what the government and independent experts had expected, and higher than the price paid by American carriers for similar spectrum. Some subsidy!

Similarly, there is no truth whatsoever to the notion that Quebecor or any of its media outlets has “hired a person who does nothing but apply through Access to information for material that could be used to embarrass the corporation”. Yes, several of our journalists do use Access to information to gain information about CBC/Radio-Canada, just as they do for every other crown corporation. Ms. Lagacé-Dowson surely cannot think that the public good would be best served by excluding CBC from public scrutiny?

Finally, while it is true that CBC does spend more than TVA in Canadian programming, it should be noted that, for the 2010-2011 broadcast year, 87% of TVA’s programming expenses, or $111M, went towards Canadian content. And this is without CBC’s more than a billion dollar head-start.

As a former CBC Radio host and frequent CBC and Radio-Canada contributor (two facts she somehow failed to mention), we can forgive Ms. Lagacé Dowson for having a soft spot for the state broadcaster. We do however believe that Hour readers would be best served if Ms. Lagacé Dowson relied on facts rather than simply rehash CBC’s attack propaganda to get her point across.

J. Serge Sasseville
Vice President, Corporate and Institutional Affairs
Quebecor Media

Helga Stephenson, Interim CEO, ACCT: “The Academy is thrilled to present cinéaste Anne Émond with the Claude Jutra Award for Nuit #1 which is a very daring and accomplished debut feature.”

At the 32nd Annual Genie Awards on March 8th, Nuit #1 will also be in the running for the Best Original Screenplay (Anne Émond) and Best Actress (Catherine De Léan) awards.

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romeromeo.com

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The 9th annual Prends ça court! awards ceremony takes place this Friday night, 8 p.m. at the Cinémathèque’s Bistro SAQ, as part of Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois.

Actor Louis-David Morasse will host and Monogrenade, Alexandre Désilets and DJ Why Alex Why will perform.

As always, Danny Lennon has gathered many, many prizes for the winners in the various categories, with the help of the following organizations: Vision Globale, Video MTL, Umen Digital, UDA, Téléfilm Canada, Télé-Québec, Spirafilm, SODEC, SHED, Prix des médias (La Presse, VOIR, HOUR, Le Devoir, CIBL, Cinoche), Post Moderne, PHI FILMS, Parce Que Films, P.R.I.M, ACIC \ ONF, McAuslan, Les Productions du 8e Art, Les Films Séville, L’INIS, Frame, Département Caméra, Cinépool, Canal +, Audio Z, ARRQ, AQTIS, AQCC, APFTQ, Air Canada \ Spafax.

Be there or be somewhere else!

Here is the full list of shorts in competition:

12 hommes en tabarnak, Jean-François Leblanc
Alone with Mr. Carter, Jean-Pierre Bergeron
Au bas de la pente, Vanya Rose
Blanche Fraise, Frédérick Tremblay
Bout, Malcolm Sutherland
Ce n’est rien, Nicolas Roy
D’Aléas, Mathieu Tremblay
Dans la neige, Alexis Fortier-Gauthier
Demain j’irai dans les champs, Serge Noël
Dimanche, Patrick Doyon
Gräns, Jessica Louisé
Henry, Yan England
Hope, Pedro Pires
Kvistur, Alexandre Roy
L’arbre au coeur qui bat, Alexandre Desjardins
L’enfant aux six hot-dogs, Joël Vaudreuil
La fleur de l’âge, Pascal Plante
La Fleur de peau, Louis-Alexandre Martin
La Ronde, Sophie Goyette
Le bleu des confettis, Sophia Belahmer
Le poids du vide, Alain Fournier
Le Trio, Louis-Philippe Eno
Les bons termes selon Dewey, Emilie Rosas
Les dimanches, Jean-Guillaume Bastien
Mardi, Chloé Robichaud
Mauser, Marc-André Girard
Mulvar is correct candidate, Patrick Désilets
Nature morte, Chloé Robichaud
Ne pas reculer, Dominique Laurence
Nostradamos, Maxence Bradley, Alexandre Lampron, Elisabeth Olga Tremblay
Ora, Philippe Baylaucq
Overcast / Nuageux, Velislav Kazakov
Paparmane, Joëlle Desjardins Paquette
Plus rien ne vouloir, Anne Émond
Reign of Terror, David Uloth
Romance, Mathieu Handfield
Sang Froid, Martin Thibaudeau
Score, Lawrence Côté-Collins
Sorry, Rabbi, Mark Slutsky
Steam is steam, Etienne Desrosiers
Surveillant, Yan Giroux
T is for Turbo, Roadkill Superstar
Tabula Rasa, Mathew Rankin
Tale (Conte), Ragnar Keil
The life and death of Yul Brynner, Jean-Marc E. Roy
The washing machine, Danny Lynch
Ti-Minou Gros-Minet, Mathieu Cyr
Trotteur, Arnaud Brisebois & Francis Leclerc
Un fusil sur la tempe, Jérôme Boucher
Un monde à découvrir, Renaud Plante & Mathieu Goyer
Une nuit avec toi, Jeanne Leblanc
Vacarme, Daniel Karolewicz
Vent solaire, Ian Lagarde

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Anne Lagacé Dowson: “FIFA is a jewel among the many Montreal festivals. A success that we can all be proud of!”

Franco Nuovo: “To be there at the birth of a festival and celebrate its 30th birthday—now that’s worth celebrating! A festival can’t last for three decades without being accessible. The diversity and quality of this year’s 232 films are there to prove it.”

René Rozon: “How lucky we are to be supported in our 30th anniversary by two spokespersons with such impressive communicative skills. With their usual verve, Anne Lagacé Dowson and Franco Nuovo will certainly help to raise FIFA’s profile. I’m sure that with their professionalism they will convey the importance and quality of this 30th-anniversary edition.”

www.artfifa.com

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Coming to Montreal are cooks from the European crossroads of Brussels and Wallonia, others from hipster West Coast Seattle. Wine producers will be hauling in bottles from Washington and Oregon. Food folks from the Quebec side of the Ottawa Valley will also have a chance to strut their stuff.

There are plenty of tempting higher-end meals on offer, in which local chefs mix it up with invited knife-wielders, such as at Toqué!, DNA, Cocagne, Les 400 Coups, or of course La Chronique, run by Brussels-born Marc de Canck. Some restaurants cozy up to visiting vintners, coming up with menus to complement West Coast wines, such as at Jolifou or Bistro Lustucru. If your wallet’s not as fat as you’d like your belly to be, some of these restaurants will be serving lunches more affordably than dinners.

And if you’re on a really tight budget, a few interesting local restaurants are being grouped under the rubric of "Midis du monde" and providing lunches for a mere $12.95 from February 20 to 24. Rumi and the Mauritanian La Khaima are nice bets. I’ve been meaning to check out Salon Mogador and Tasca; this gives me a good excuse.

I like the sound of the culinary tours given on Saturdays, and "Micro-brasseries, maxi saveurs" is a particularly fitting subject given the Belgian tenor of the fest. Other walks and tastings explore the market neighbourhoods, Old Montreal and the Quartier des spectacles.

The weekend of February 18 and 19 will be hopping at Jean-Talon Market’s Mezzanine, where Outaouais chefs will be showing us tricks of their trade (check schedule for exact times). Beer crème caramel? What a great idea, possibly even better than beer jelly. The secrets to making these will be unveiled by Romain Riva of Wakefield Inn, using beer from Gatineau’s Les Brasseurs du Temps on Saturday. The next day, Riva cooks Petite Nation lamb with lemon, lavender and tamari almonds from Les Amandes de Maribel. Also Sunday, Chef Gérard Fischer of Hull’s La Tartuffe will prep waffles with Fromagerie Montebello’s Tête à Papineau cheese and stew bison from Takwânaw Farm.

Two lectures will be given at UQAM, promising mysterious-sounding sensorial components (February 21 and 23, 6 p.m., reservations required, www.coeurdessciences.uqam.ca). One on cheeses should reveal what makes each

unique, and at "The Raw Materials of Chocolate," chocolatiers Laurent Gerbaud and François Deremiens will explain how the raw cacao bean is transformed into our fave addictive treat.

Festival-goers will also be able to buy some of the Belgian chocolatiers’ wares at the outdoor site’s Maison du Chocolat. Other goodies, from waffles and fries to Grumman 78 tacos, will be available at the Place des festivals. And to mark the all-night Nuit Blanche party, Brasserie T will offer a Truffles Galore menu, for those who want to mark the darkness with dusky fungus.

Montreal en lumière
February 16 to 26
www.montrealenlumiere.com

Also reaching a milestone this year is the now-35-year-old Coop Vidéo de Montréal, which has played a vital part in helping many of our best filmmakers in their creative process since 1977, including Jacques Leduc, whose Chronique de la vie quotidienne will be showcased during the RVCQ (Cinémathèque, February 19). Robert Morin, one of the Coop’s co-founders, will give a master class (Cinémathèque, February 16) and be the subject of a mini-retrospective of his recent work, with screenings of Petit Pow! Pow! Noël, Papa à la chasse aux Lagopèdes and Journal d’un coopérant (Cinéma ONF, February 21 to 23). Let’s mention as well that Morin co-stars with Élise Guilbault in Lilly, a powerful short adapted by writer-director Olaf Svenson from a 100 Bullets comic book story (Cinémathèque, February 16).

Master classes will also be given by French director Claire Denis (Grande Bibliothèque, February 21) and cinematographer Agnès Godard (Cinémathèque, February 22), and three of the films they’ve made together will screen during the fest, namely Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day and 35 Rhums (Cinéma ONF, February 17 to 19), plus Denis’ White Material, which was shot by Yves Cape (Cinémathèque, February 20).

Before hitting theatres this Friday, Innu filmmaker Yves Sioui Durand’s Mesnak (which was co-written by… Robert Morin) will show at the RVCQ (Quartier Latin, February 16), preceded by a roundtable discussion on First Nations cinema and followed by a "makusham" party featuring Montagnais musician Florent Vollant (both at the Cinémathèque’s Bistro SAQ).

Other special events of note include the Prends ça court! awards ceremony (Bistro SAQ, February 17); the return of the Journées Transmédia (Cinémathèque, February 21 to 23); the Rendez-vous d’hiver, which will take the action outdoors for a night (Place Pasteur, February 25); and following the presentation of closing film Over My Dead Body, Brigitte Poupart’s documentary about choreographer Dave St-Pierre (Quartier Latin, February 25), a party featuring Qualité Motel, Roux Soundsystem, DJ Matteo Grondini and VJ Choco Beets (at Bistro SAQ).

And as always, the RVCQ is a good occasion to catch up to some of the past year’s best features (such as Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar, Patrick Demers’ Jaloux, Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie’s Laurentie, Stéphane Lafleur’s En terrains connus, Sébastien Pilote’s Le Vendeur…), shorts (my personal favourite: Sophie Goyette’s La Ronde) and documentaries (have you seen Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks’ Surviving Progress yet?). Bon cinéma!

Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois
To February 26
www.rvcq.com

"It seems that the story the film contains is one that is tangible and doesn’t seem distant to audiences in different parts of the world," says Asghar Farhadi via a translator. "And the aspects that are more local, that specifically have to do with my culture and country, are still understandable to [foreign] audiences. Maybe it’s also that the kind of viewer that the film requires and creates is not merely a passive viewer but one that needs to be involved in the film, which makes a greater connection exist."

The story of Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Maadi), a soon-to-be-divorced couple who become entangled in a legal imbroglio with another couple (played by Sareh Bayat and Shahab Hosseini), A Separation offers an eye-opening portrait of the sexual, economic and religious divisions present in Iranian society, while also raising profound questions about ethics and causality.

The film was partly inspired by Farhadi’s personal experience, notably in regards to the character of Nader’s father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. "My own grandfather had Alzheimer’s and some of the events that befall the old man are things that happened to him. Also, my relationship with my daughter [Sarina Farhadi], who actually plays the part of Termeh in the film – it’s not as though the relationship between Nader and her is the same as mine with my daughter, but it still was something that prompted me to include that relationship and develop it."

One of the most admirable things about Farhadi’s film is the absence of good guys or bad guys; we can actually understand the point of view and feelings of everyone on screen. "One of the most important things for me to maintain in all the films I’ve worked on so far is this very thing," says the 40-year-old director. "In none of my films to date have I had a negative character. I can’t provide a portrayal of a character and say, ‘This person is always good’ or ‘This person is always bad.’ I believe that an account of the character of a person is possible only within a description of the circumstances in which they are to be found."

While the adults fight, their children (each of the couple has a young daughter) have to witness the whole mess, powerless. "In my view, children are the most important judges in this film. They are constantly looking around to try and reach a conclusion, a judgement as to who is right, and their conclusion changes constantly, just like the audience’s. They are practising for entering the society of grown-ups and they’re beginning to understand how complex the world of adults is."

A Separation was produced without government support, but even when working with private financing, Iranian filmmakers still have to deal with some form of censorship. "It doesn’t matter where you are getting your financing from," admits Farhadi. "The laws are applied to all the films [in Iran]. But if you do receive your financing from government sources, then they would apply those laws even more strictly."

Farhadi is now writing and developing a screenplay for a film he plans to shoot abroad with foreign producers. "The reason is that the story that I’m doing actually takes place outside the country," he explains. "My expectation is that this film will be a continuation of my previous work; I don’t expect it to be something really different."

If it’s anywhere near as great as A Separation, we wouldn’t want it any other way.

A Separation
In theatres February 24