Les 4 soldats

In brief: Once Civil War was declared, the military allied itself with the wealthy upper class in order to eliminate the opposition. The resulting chaos led to the demise of countless parents that left an entire generation of children to grow up without a family. It is within this context that Dominique meets Mateo (de la Cortina), quickly followed by Big Max (Bertrand) and Kevin (Schneider), who attaches himself to the newly-formed trio. Together, these four soldiers must deal with this war that has taken everything away from them, including their youth. When their regiment halts for a little R&R, their friendship becomes increasingly stronger and slowly builds towards recapturing the lost feeling of belonging to a family. Comfortably settled in their cabin or nonchalantly dipping their feet in a pond, they have rediscovered the tranquility of the good old days, a tranquility that is about to get shattered with the arrival of Gabriel (L'Écuyer), a new recruit they will have to train. Ramblings:

GMO OMG

In brief: Today in North America, each of us unknowingly consumes genetically engineered food on a daily basis. While the risks and effects to our health and the environment are largely unknown, more and more studies only provide even more reason for concern. We are the oblivious guinea pigs for wide-scale experimentation of modern biotechnology. GMO OMG tells the story of a father’s discovery of GMOs in relationship to his three young children and the world around him. Ramblings:

Parkland

In brief: From producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, Parkland is the true story behind a tragic day in history you thought you knew, but didn’t, and couldn’t, until now…50 years later. November 22nd, 1963 was a day that changed the world forever – when young American President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. We follow in almost real time a handful of individuals forced to make split-second decisions after this incomprehensible event that would change their lives and forever alter our world’s landscape: the young doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital, the chief of the Dallas Secret Service, the unwitting cameraman who captured what has become the most watched and examined film in history, the FBI Agents who had gunman Lee Harvey Oswald within their grasp and Vice President Lyndon Johnson who had to take control of a country in a moment’s notice. Woven together, their seemingly disparate perspectives make one of the most thrilling and powerful stories never told. Ramblings:

Our Man in Tehran

In brief: Our Man in Tehran details the joint Canadian and CIA efforts to exfiltrate six Americans who escaped after being taken hostage during the Iranian revolution in 1979, and took refuge in the Canadian embassy. Interweaving archival footage, modernday interviews and verité encounters between former Ambassador Ken Taylor and other characters who were directly involved in the crisis, Our Man in Tehran provides a unique look at the true story behind the “Canadian Caper.” Ramblings:

The Dinner

In brief: Adapting a Dutch bestseller inspired by a shocking real-life crime, Menno Meyjes (screenwriter of The Color Purple and Lionheart) directs this excoriating assessment of Europe’s contemporary social ills. Ramblings:

Stranger by the Lake

In brief: Winner of the best director prize in the Un Certain Regarde section at Cannes, Alain Guiraudie’s disciplined, eerie "naturalist thriller" follows the comings and goings at a lakeside gay cruising beach as a man falls for a lethally dangerous Adonis. Ramblings:

Gravity

In brief: George Clooney and Sandra Bullock star in this highly anticipated 3D space thriller from acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También). Ramblings:

Felony

In brief: Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby) scripts and stars in this thriller about a decorated cop whose attempt to hide his complicity in a traffic accident makes him the target of a dogged investigator (Jai Courtney). Ramblings:

Tom at the Farm

In brief: This psychological thriller from Canada’s endlessly inventive and provocative Xavier Dolan (J'ai tué ma mere, Laurence Anyways) follows a grief-stricken young ad copywriter who visits his dead lover’s parents — only to get drawn into a savage game rooted in the rural family’s dark past. Ramblings:

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her and Him

In brief: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Viola Davis star in this innovative two-part film that relates a love story from two different perspectives. Ramblings:

The Militant

In brief: Returning to his rural hometown after his father’s death, a fiery student activist finds himself forced to sort out his family’s very tangled affairs, in Uruguayan writer-director Manolo Nieto’s sensitive and poetic coming-of-age story. Ramblings:

MARY Queen of Scots

In brief: The brilliant young French actress Camille Rutherford (Low Life) stars as the doomed monarch in this sumptuous historical drama by Swiss director Thomas Imbach. Ramblings:

Finding Vivian Maier

In brief: This intriguing documentary shuttles from New York to France to Chicago as it traces the life story of the late Vivian Maier, a career nanny whose previously unknown cache of 100,000 photographs has earned her a posthumous reputation as one of America’s most accomplished and insightful street photographers. Ramblings:

The Double

In brief: Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska star in writer-director Richard Ayoade’s updating of the famous Dostoevsky novella about a man who finds his life being usurped by his doppelganger. Ramblings:

Night Moves

In brief: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Saarsgard star as radical environmental activists whose act of eco-terror plunges them into a moral maelstrom, in the highly anticipated new film from acclaimed American auteur Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff). Ramblings:

Devil's Knot

In brief: Atom Egoyan dramatizes the fallout from the notorious 1993 West Memphis murders, focusing on the grieving mother (Reese Witherspoon) of one of the murdered boys as she grows increasingly troubled by the lynch-mob fever that grips the town. Ramblings:

Mystery Road

In brief: Returning to his small outback hometown, an Aboriginal police detective undertakes an investigation into the brutal murder of a teenage Aboriginal girl that brings the town’s long-simmering tensions to the surface. Aaron Pedersen, Jack Thompson and Hugo Weaving star in this new film from internationally lauded Australian director Ivan Sen (Beneath Clouds, Toomelah). Ramblings:

The Sea

In brief: Mourning the recent death of his wife and wrestling with the demons of his past, a retired art historian (Ciaran Hinds; Munich) takes lodging at a seaside cottage under the eye of a watchful housekeeper (Charlotte Rampling), in this adaptation of revered Irish author John Banville’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel. Ramblings:

Palo Alto

In brief: Based on James Franco’s first book of short stories, Gia Coppola’s auspicious directorial debut features a knock-out cast (including Franco, Emma Roberts, and Zoe Levin) and immerses us in the tangled lives of teenagers living in the eponymous Californian city. Ramblings:

Heart of a Lion

In brief: The leader of a gang of racist skinheads finds his prejudices and misplaced loyalties pitted against his desire for love and family when he falls for a waitress whose son is of African descent. Ramblings: