Au Chic Resto Pop

Le quartier Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, à Montréal, est totalement inconnu des touristes, tout comme l'est son Chic Resto Pop. Il s'agit pourtant d'un restaurant unique au monde : à une population pour qui la faim n'a rien d'exotique, il réussit à offrir à bon compte les surplus que lui donnent les marchands. Issus du quartier, guettés par toutes les dérives, les jeunes qui y travaillent connaissent là un moment capital de leur existence. Ce sont les vedettes de ce film où ils se dévoilent en rires et en chansons. Sur une musique de rock, de blues, de western ou de simple ballade, ils disent leur vérité, accompagnés de Cassonade (Steve Faulkner), le musicien qui les a aidés à la mettre en forme.

In an extraordinary soup kitchen in Milan, two vastly different worlds have been brought together by a unique social experiment. Theater of Life captures the remarkable relationship forged between the finest haute cuisine chefs in the world and the city's most disadvantaged groups: refugees, recovering drug addicts, former sex workers, and a host of others with no place else to go. For Expo Milano 2015, renowned chef Massimo Bottura, whose Osteria Francescana was named world's best restaurant in 2016, invited 60 of his international confrères to join him in transforming food destined for the dumpster into delicious and nutritious meals for Italy's hungriest residents. But the documentary delves far deeper than this important food story: it captures the moving encounters of guests at the soup kitchen who have found a welcoming community there, showing us glimpses of their heart and soul in the process. A visual feast in itself, Theater of Life puts a human face on its powerful message of social justice while raising awareness about the enormous environmental impact of food waste.

This film is considered to be the forerunner of the NFB's Challenge for Change Program. It is a look at a family in trouble, seen from the inside. There is the trouble with the police, the begging for stale bread at the convent, the birth of another child, and the father who explains his family's predicament. Although filmed in Montréal, this is the anatomy of poverty as it occurs in North America, seen by a camera that became part of the family's life for several weeks. A sequel to this film was made in 1986, under the title Courage to Change, showing what happend to the Bailey family 18 years later.