| Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal | |
| Founded: | 1971 |
| Location: | Montreal, Quebec Canada |
| Date: | October 6–17, 2021 |
| Last: | 2023 |
| Website: | nouveaucinema.ca |
The Festival du nouveau cinéma or FNC (English: Festival of New Cinema) is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, featuring independent films from around the world.[1] Over 160,000 people attend each year. One of the oldest film festivals in Canada, it is an Academy Award-qualifying festival for short films.[2]
Although the festival screens a variety of films by both new and established filmmakers, including many of the same high-profile films screening at other film festivals in the same year, its core programs are the national and international competitions, which present a variety of awards for both feature and short films by emerging Canadian and international directors.[3]
The festival is currently led by interim executive director Michel Pradier, following the departure of Nicolas Girard Deltruc from the position in early 2024.[4]
Founded in 1971 as the Festival international du cinéma en 16mm de Montréal, the festival welcomes Québécois, Canadian, and international filmmakers, and encourages exchanges between industry professionals and the general public. It was a small underground film festival until the 1990s, when it began to gain prominence as an alternative to the Montreal World Film Festival due to increased public dissatisfaction with the management of the larger event.[5]
It is now the primary general interest film festival in Montreal,[6] with the more genre-oriented Fantasia International Film Festival serving as the city's other major annual film event, although the two festivals have undertaken various efforts to collaborate, rather than treating each other as competition, due to their distinct programming mandates.[7] The press have, however, sometimes continued to lament the fact that the Festival du nouveau cinéma does not have the same level of international prominence that Montreal World had in its heyday or that the Toronto International Film Festival still enjoys, asserting that some of the city's smaller specialist film festivals, including Cinemania for Canadian and international francophone films and the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma for Quebec films, still draw away from some of the potential of FNC and Fantasia to expand their profiles.[8]
Over its history, it has introduced audiences to filmmakers such as François Girard, Atom Egoyan, Denis Villeneuve, Guy Maddin, Léa Pool, Jim Jarmusch, Abbas Kiarostami, Spike Lee, Wim Wenders, Raymond Depardon, Jane Campion, Pedro Almodóvar, Wong Kar-wai, Peter Greenaway, Chantal Akerman and Marguerite Duras.
The festival was founded in 1971 by Claude Chamberlan and Dimitri Eipidès. The festival went through several name changes.
In 2004 Daniel Langlois, director of FNC since 1999, left the organization to begin the Festival International de Films de Montréal (known in English as New Montreal FilmFest), which was initiated and created with the support of SODEC (Société de développement des entreprises culturelles) and Telefilm Canada after a dispute between these Canadian government sponsors and the Montreal World Film Festival.
Langlois initially programmed the Festival International de Films de Montréal (FIFM; New Montreal FilmFest) to coincide with the Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media (FCMM). According to press reports pertaining to the controversy between the Montreal World Film Festival (WFF/FFM) and the New Montreal FilmFest, Langlois planned to merge the two festivals, but failed to do so when the FCMM refused any such merger. The dates for the inaugural New Montreal FilmFest were ultimately changed to avoid conflicting with the dates of the FCMM.
In 2005, both the FNC and the New Montreal FilmFest came under new management. In early 2006, the New Montreal FilmFest folded after the failure of its inaugural festival. Both the FNC and the Montreal World Film Festival would continue to exist after the demise of the New Montreal FilmFest.