Katak, The Brave Beluga
The French-Canadian produced animated movie Katak, The Brave Beluga is a copycat of other family flicks. But as far as knock-offs go, this is certainly one of the better ones.
Maison 4:3
Felix and the Treasure of Morgäa
For the first 20 minutes or so, I was really enjoying Nicola Lemay’s Canadian family film Felix and the Treasure of Morgäa. The animation popped off the screen, the writing and visual gags were amusing, and the story was nesting in a promising adventure-fantasy element. Even the obligatory cute animals were making me laugh. I was excited to finally have an animated children’s movie ready to recommend to families.
Nadia, Butterfly
Pascal Plante’s Nadia, Butterfly eerily takes place at the now-cancelled 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and follows a French Canadian Olympian swimmer as she participates in her final event as a professional athlete. Lovingly directed yet glacially paced, Nadia, Butterfly boasts some excellent performances and cinematography, but struggles to overcome its vague characterizations and meandering screenplay.
Ghost Town Anthology
The work I’ve seen from French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté all involve the subject of lost souls. Carcasses was a pseudo-doc about a lonely scrapyard owner who is suddenly interrupted by a gang of wanderers, and Curling followed the faded relationship between a father and his daughter in the wake of a tragedy.