The best Jean-Simon Leduc’s movies

The reality of addiction in a tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.

Three teenagers are shaken up by their first loves in the turmoil of their youth. At a time when others are conforming, they stand their ground and assert their right to love and be free.

A high-class prostitute by choice, Nelly Arcan’s colorful life is recreated in a multi-layered and stylish mix of make-believe and memoir, revealing Nelly’s alter egos: the neurotic writer, the vulnerable lover, the call girl and the star. Nelly shocked the literary world with her elegant writing and the lurid details of sex work in her autobiographical first novel, Whore, which became a critically acclaimed bestseller. Despite unprecedented success, Nelly’s remarkable life ended in tragedy.

For the first time in decades, Simon and Jonathan can agree: their late father would have hated the farce surrounding his funeral. ”We should have spread his ashes over Gouin Reservoir.” The spur-of-the-moment idea quickly becomes a plan. On impulse, they rent a houseboat and set off with the ashes. The two brothers venture out onto the vastness of the reservoir, foolishly hoping to find the cabin where their father taught them to fish when they were young. But the watery expanse is much larger than they remember, and their relationship has disintegrated more than they thought. Enclosed in a confined space as they pass through dizzying, winding wilderness, Simon and Jonathan have no other choice but to confront what they have become, reconnect with what is hidden in the depths of their souls and reveal their true natures to one another. Originally planned as a memorial, the fishing trip turns into a journey of discovery that will forever change the two brothers.

JP lives with his brother Vincent, his mother Joe and his girlfriend Mel in a small appartement of Verdun. Constantly walking a tightrope, JP tries to maintain a proper balance between the numerous needs of his family of which he feels responsible for, the collecting job he is doing with his brother and his involvements in his uncle’s drug cartel who he sees as a father figure.

Aïcha is a troubled teenage girl who cannot forgive her mother for kicking out the stepfather she adored. Aïcha longs for him to come back and take her away. When she meets Baz, a man twice her age, it’s love at first sight for her; the real kind, the one that hurts. Baz wants to help this lost little girl, but she wants much more from him, and is ready to do anything to get it.

This short story is a prequel to our favorite friendship unit, Apple. Follow her in her adventure from the other side of the Wasteland, right before her memorable encounter with the Kid!

Caught stealing drugs from the wrong people, 27 year old Vincent is in trouble and on the run from the local mob. Fleeing to the backwoods, Vincent unexpectedly reconnects with his brother Michel with whom he’d cut ties many years ago. As he tries to maintain the semblance of a normal life hanging out with friends and playing in his band, Vincent witnesses his brother's own turbulent downward spiral.