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on Jeanne Mance

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City of a Dream (Documentary, 74 min, 2022)

Few people know that before its founding and the arrival of its first inhabitants in 1642, Montreal was a social project dreamed up, imagined and conceived by a handful of people who were part of a secret society. Who was behind this audacious, perilous, and mysterious project? What were their motivations? Their dream? The keys to understanding this story are found in a 17^th century manuscript that, by all accounts, is the hidden autobiography of Jeanne Mance. With an original and personal perspective, the filmmaker revisits this story where the past resonates with a still-current desire to create a world closer to humanist values.

DVD (North America)
TV5 Unis (Canada, in French only)
iTunes/AppleTV (21 countries)
Vimeo (Worldwide)

Wandering Souls (Documentary, 12 min, 2019)

On November 5, 2017, the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal closed its doors after 375 years of care and history. In her previous film, The Last Breath, filmmaker Annabel Loyola captured its living memory. In Wandering Souls, she returns to the now-vacant site to soak up the silence and listen to the echoes of the past resonate within its walls.

Vimeo (Worldwide)

The Last Breath, in the Heart of the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal (Documentary, 72 min, 2017)

Founded by Jeanne Mance in 1642 at the same time as the city, the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal is about to disappear, to be replaced by the new CHUM. The Last Breath plunges us into an enclosed space where life, death, love, and friendship coexist. This film is above all a story of courage and resilience, that of its last occupants. Like a “mise en abyme” imbued with humanity, small and large events of the last two years follow one another throughout the film. Afterwards, nothing will ever be the same again.

DVD (North America, Europe)
Vimeo (Worldwide)
Official website

La folle entreprise (A Mad Venture), in the Footsteps of Jeanne Mance (Documentary, 59 min, 2010)

Fascinated by the singular destiny of Jeanne Mance (1606-1673), whose major role as co-founder of Montreal has remained forgotten, the filmmaker from Langres, in Champagne, like her illustrious compatriot, decides to set out in search of the motivations that drove a woman who was neither widowed, nor married, nor a nun in the 17^th century to set off into the unknown and surpass herself in a hostile context to found a city more than three centuries ago.

DVD (North America)
Vimeo (Worldwide)
Official website