Screening Dates
  • November 12, 2017 3:00
Free Admission

Denys Arcand, fêted director of The Decline of the American Empire and Jesus of Montreal, first made a name for himself with this allegedly subversive socio-political documentary, suppressed in one of Canada’s most notorious cases of film censorship. On est au coton—literally ​“we are in cotton,” but connoting ​“we are fed up”—chronicles harsh working conditions and the history of union struggle in Quebec’s textile industry, and highlights the Anglo-American domination of Quebec’s economy. Completed around the time of Quebec’s October Crisis, Arcand’s provocative film was banned (ostensibly for ​“untruths”) by NFB commissioner Sydney Newman, circulated on samizdat video, and not officially released until 1976. A storyline in Arcand’s 1974 feature Gina dramatizes the documentary’s making.