“Bootlegger,” director Caroline Monet’s first feature film, who also wrote the screenplay with Daniel Wachshorn, was selected at the Gothenburg Film Festival in Sweden.
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The film tells the story of Manny (Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs), a master’s student who has returned to her native region, in Nord-du-Québec, where her traumatic past will eventually come to light. Determined to find her place in her community, the latter will be quickly split into two clans, led by two radically opposing women determined to find the best path to independence.
The Bootlegger was filmed in part in the Algonquin community of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, in Maniwaki, Outaouais, and stars Pascale Bussières, Samian, Jacques Newashish, Dominique Pétin, Joséphine Bacon, CS Gilbert Crazy Horse, Charles Bender and Brigitte Poupart.
With this feature film, Caroline Monet won the Canadian Emerging Filmmaker Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), the Best Imagine Native Drama Film Award in Toronto, and inaugurated the 50th New Film Festival in Toronto. Montreal (FNC). In 2016, the director also benefited from a residency provided by the Cinéfondation de Cannes.
Produced by Catherine Chagnon for Microclimat Films with financial participation from SODEC, Telefilm Canada and Harold Greenberg Fund, in association with Best Friend Forever, and in collaboration with Société Radio-Canada and Super Ecran, “Bootlegge” will be presented in full at its premiere at the Gothenburg Film Festival, from 28 January to February 6.