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Pier-Philippe Chevigny with Anne-Katrin Titze on Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne: “They are my true heroes and Abbas Kiarostami.” And on Jayro Bustamante: “He has a production company in Guatemala City and they actually held auditions for us.”

Ariane (Ariane Castellanos) sees a crying man on a bus and is told by Michèle (Eve Duranceau) to take care of it. So starts Pier-Philippe Chevigny’s gripping Richelieu. Ariane is beginning her new job as an interpreter of French and Spanish and is traveling to a corn facility in the Richelieu region of Quebec with migrant workers on board. Upon arrival she is greeted by her boss Stéphane (Marc-André Grondin) and is told that “any fool” could do her job.

Stéphane (Marc-André Grondin) confronts Ariane (Ariane Castellanos) Photo: Gabriel Brault Tardif

The work environment is abominable. Steadily, the minutiae of injustice mounts. The seasonal workers cannot join the union but have to pay dues.

A first teaser has been unveiled for Canadian filmmaker Pier-Philippe Chevigny’s debut feature “Temporaries” (“Richelieu”), which will bow at the Tribeca Festival followed by the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and Fantasia International Film Festival.

The film follows Ariane (Ariane Castellanos), who moves back home to the Richelieu Valley after a breakup and gets a job as an interpreter for seasonal migrant workers in a factory. Witnessing workplace abuses perpetrated by Stephane (Marc-André Grondin), the factory’s aggressive supervisor, Ariane must decide how far she is willing to go to speak out against injustice.

Chevigny grew up in the Richelieu Valley in Quebec and observing migrant workers there informed the film. “My first feature aims to question the image of Canada as a perfect, injustice-free country. Launching at Tribeca, Karlovy Vary and Fantasia matters because it gives the weight of international attention to that criticism: it’s harder to ignore...

Only two projects into her already solid filmography, Maria Chapdelaine and Falcon Lake star Sara Montpetit will sink her teeth into Ariane Louis-Seize‘s Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant. A filmmaker who has preemed her shorts at TIFF and Berlinale, Louis-Seize’s feature debut has Félix-Antoine Bénard in the co-lead and the rest of the players include Viking‘s Steve Laplante, Sophie Cadieux, Noémie O’Farrell, Marie Brassard, Marc Beaupré, Patrick Hivon, Micheline Bernard, Ariane Castellanos, Madeleine Peloquin, Gabriel-Antoine Roy, Emma Olivier, Arnaud Vachon and Isabella Villalba. Production begins today in Montreal until the first week of December. Viking helmer Stéphane Lafleur is onboard as the editor.…...