The best way to raise public awareness about a cause we care about? Approach it from within, through real human encounters. This is what Priscillia Piccoli and Laurence Turcotte-Fraser, the directors of the documentary, did My suppressed city Winner of the Jean Marc Vallée Audience Prize at FCVQ 2023.
If you doubted the depth of Montreal’s housing crisis, the sensitive and informative documentary “My evicted city” will enlighten you about the precarious situation in which the metropolis has found itself for several years.
Decency
Many faces
Filmed over a two-year period in the midst of a pandemic, this ensemble film follows key moments in the everyday lives of various people affected by the crisis. a sign that it has multiple faces. What do these people of different ages and backgrounds have in common? A housing battle (permanent or temporary) to fight and a story that outrages, moves and makes you think.
“It’s not about camping, it’s about survival,” says social worker Guylain Levasseur as police and the city of Montreal dismantle the Notre Dame camp. “Homelessness is not a concept that sells, it affects thousands of people,” he adds, looking into the camera.
Over the course of the feature film, we meet the courageous tenants of Manoir Lafontaine in the gentrified Mont-Royal plateau; where an announcement of “major renovations” threatens to throw 60 families out onto the streets.
Watch Maggie, an old lady afraid of losing her home, break down crying in the arms of Manon Massé (the activist and spokesperson for Québec Solidaire who fights alongside her) to relieve the need understand what these residents feel. They have to specify “good payers” and people for whom waiving rent for the last 8, 10, 20 or even 30 years is unthinkable.
Decency
Sensitivity and presence on site
Evictions, renovations (the action of evicting residents in order to renovate the apartment and then rent it out again at higher costs), social injustices, gentrification, homelessness, abundance of emergency camps, but also mutual aid from citizens and the zeal for the rights of people to fight. The themes these characters address are as rich as they are disturbing.
Through their lens, their sensitivity and these encounters that shaped them on the ground, the young filmmakers Priscillia Piccoli and Laurence Turcotte-Fraser managed to give a human character to a crisis with often abstract concepts for those unfamiliar with it. not directly affected.
We thank them for this and hope that their film – as they wish – stimulates and promotes a real discussion between citizens and decision-makers.
3.5 stars/5
-The feature-length documentary My suppressed city by Laurence Turcotte-Fraser and Priscillia Piccoli will be showing in Quebec cinemas starting Friday.
Photo of Laurence Turcotte-Fraser and Priscillia Piccoli, taken during the Jean Marc Vallée Audience Award ceremony at FCVQ © François Ozan