The Dispossessed
DOC | 01:18 / 03:03 | CANADA-SWITZERLAND
DIRECTOR MATHIEU ROY | SCRIPT RICHARD BROUILLETTE AND BENOIT AQUIN
A COPRODUCTION MIRA FILM SWITZERLAND AND LOWIK MEDIA MONTREAL
An impressionist journey that sheds light on the daily strife of the world’s hungry farming class. In this era of industrialized agriculture, across the globe, people who produce food are paid less than almost any other profession. Part cinema-vérité, part essay, our film examines the mechanisms by which farmers are falling into a somber cycle of despair, debt and dispossession.
Biography
Mathieu Roy, Director
Mathieu Roy is a Montreal-based filmmaker, working in both documentary and fiction. In 2003, after acquiring his degree in Political Science and graduating from two film schools, the Montreal’s National Film Institute (INIS) and the New York Film Academy (NYFA), Mathieu was hired as Martin Scorsese’s personal assistant for the filming of The Aviator. He received international prizes for his documentaries. Involved filmmaker, he’s following the tradition of « truth cinema ». By addressing heavy and contemporary issues, he transports the viewer into a universe of disturbing truths.
Filmography
Another House, fiction, 2013 Surviving Progress, documentary, 2011 Death in Venice, documentary, 2009 La peau de léopard, documentary, 2006 François Girard’s three-act journey, documentary, 2005Richard Brouillette, screenwriter
Richard Brouillette was born in Montreal in 1970. In 1989, he began working as a film critic for the Montreal weekly newspaper “Voir”. In 1995, he directed his first documentary feature “Too much is enough”. His second feature “Encirclement: Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy” won numerous international prizes including the Robert and Frances Flaherty Grand Prize at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the 2009 Visions du Réel film festival. He has also produced six features including five documentaries and works as a programmer in the multidisciplinary exhibition space Casa Obscura that he founded with other artists in 1993 .
Benoit Aquin, co-screenwriter
Benoît Aquin was born in 1963 in Montreal, where he currently lives and works. In 1987 , he graduated from the New England School of Photography in Boston. As a photographer, he has earned an international reputation for his artful and moving essays on global humanitarian and ecological issues such as, for example, “The Dew of Death” (2004), which documents the dire consequences of Nemagon pesticide on Nicaraguan fruit farmers. In 2008, Benoit Aquin was awarded the Prix Pictet International for his work on the Chinese dust bowl, Far East, Far West, which was subsequently published as a book (Le passage, 2009). His photographs frequently appear in national and international newspapers and magazines and have been exposed in galleries in Canada and Europe. His work is currently being exhibited by Polaris Images (New York) and Galerie Pangée (Montreal).
Theater release
Festivals
2017: Jihlava Festival International du Film Documentaire (Czech Republic)
2017: RIDM – Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (Canada)
2018: Solothurner Filmtage (Switzerland)
