Interview: A Festival with a Human Scale
What makes the difference, at the Reincontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montreal (RIDM), are people: the filmmakers who not only present their films but also mingle with the public and participate in lectures, seminars and masterclasses; the public of moviegoers of all ages (but especially the younger generation); and the three artistic directors who, for the past five years, have been working as a team to make RIDM truly global: Lebanese of Armenian origin Marlene Edoyan, Brazilian Ana Alicia de Morais, and Canadian of Portuguese descent Hubert Sabino-Brunette.
We ask them for an overview of the festival, which includes different competitive sections: International and National Feature, International and National Short and Medium-Length; Magnus Isacsson for films with a strong social conscience; Essential, Against the Grain and Horizons Panorama; and the New Vision Competition, which our FIPRESCI Jury evaluated this year as the beginning of a new collaboration with the festival. This year the country focus was on Taiwan and the Retrospectives were dedicated to Louise Bourque, French Canadian pioneer of experimental cinema, and O Grivo, the duo of Brazilian musicians Nelson Soares and Marcos Moreira.
How would you describe RIDM?
Marlene Edoyan: We see it as a very colourful place to show international and national programs in a very intimate and stimulating environment. I am a producer and director and I started as a fan of RIDM, because it makes a lot of space for filmmakers and stays close to its DNA of social and political films, putting an accent on innovative works which experiment with creative language.
Ana Alicia de Morais: I am also a producer in my native Brazil, and I think RIDM is a festival with a human scale, which values human exchanges and brings people of different origins together.
Hubert Sabino-Brunette: I teach cinema at university, and I program the Outdoor documentary film festival, which is socially and politically oriented, as well as Quebec’s online platform for documentaries Tenk, which started in France. And I try to bring my experience to our Programming Collective at RIDM.
How did you structure the work since you became RIDM’s Artistic Directors?
Ana: We work together on the whole program of the festival, and after five years we managed to have a balance between our own backgrounds, professional experiences and personal interests. For example I am responsible for the Forum, the international market, which is really important for the local community as a bridge with international professionals, but we oversee everything together.
Marlene: It took a few years to put things into place, but this year we are really seeing the fruits: five years is a good time to look back at some of the changes that we brought. We tried to add our flavours to the selection in the way the categories have been adjusted: the Magnus Isaacson section for example became a competition while before it was a prize, so we brought it into the limelight, making sure that social and political films would be part of the program. Since last year New Vision mixes national and international entries, and we take a lot of pride in the way we select our short films. RIDM has also become a showcase of local talent: this year it was musicians from Montreal to do a concert.
Hubert: We also had the idea of the Encounters, not only bringing filmmakers to the festival but accompanying them to meet other filmmakers and the public. They are here for the q&a’s, but also take part in panels and lectures.
What has been the feedback this year?
Marianne: Filmmakers who had never been at RIDM, and even industry people, told us that they loved the ambiance, they found it warm and welcoming, and they could see the team behind it, it’s not a mystery who is running the festival: we are part of it.
What was your priority with this year’s program? Did we have a specific objective?
Hubert: I think we tried not to have one, because we wanted to have different approaches, to include different visions of cinema. We tried hard not to go in one direction.
Marianne: In previous two years we wanted to bring some ideas of what a documentary film was, and we were obsessed with the concept of hybrid cinema, in order to challenge the boundaries. It was fun, but this year we decided to just leave it open, and to bring to the program films that were less about the language. We felt like we needed content: politically the world has been living difficult years and we wanted films that resonated on a human level. That seeped through the pores of our programming.
What is your plan for the next edition?
Ana: Collaborations are a big thing for us, and especially on the parallel sections we try to bring other perspectives. This year we collaborated with Taiwan to bring a national focus, and we have a lot of other partnerships in mind for the next year.
Hubert: We really want to build something with other festivals, too.
Marianne: We are really passionate about finding new voices and diverse perspectives.
What got you interested in FIPRESCI, and what do you expect of our Federation?
Marianne: We approached you for this collaboration because we think it brings something really valuable for filmmakers, especially those that are not necessarily in the spotlight. We saw the value it could bring for them, and also for us in terms of collaboration, by which we try to expand our borders, also presenting Quebec programs to other countries through your international voices.
Quebec seems to have a very strong sense of community, which is something that appears to be lost in other countries.
Marianne: Montreal is a very kind accommodating city.
Ana: But we live in a bubble of privilege, and we need to face that, as the Region year by year is going right wing.
Hubert: That is why for us the opening with Arjun Talwar’s Letters from Wolf Street, a tender documentary about an immigrant’s life in a Warsaw neighbourhood, was important, because it was about how someone that comes from outside can find roots and a community, dealing with racism and exclusion. We felt the need to show this film in Montreal because racism and exclusion is everywhere, and the feedback for this film was quite exceptional.
Paola Casella
©FIPRESCI 2025