HOCHELAGA, LAND OF SOULS (HOCHELAGA, TERRE DES ÂMES) World Cinema

Arriving on Canada’s 150th anniversary, HOCHELAGA, LAND OF SOULS is a poetic tapestry of stories across time, all stemming from an excavation dig in Montreal following a deadly sinkhole during a college football game. Historian and Mohawk Baptiste Asigny (Canadian rapper Samian) tells a rapt audience that the McGill campus is the long-elusive site of Hochelaga, an ancient Iroquois village. Skillfully mixing scenes from different centuries, including the aftermath of a bloody Iroquois battle; a white trapper whose romance with a Native woman is torn apart by plague; and a wealthy widow hiding fugitive soldiers during the American Revolution; François Girard’s vision pays testimony to the lives lived in Montreal’s past and present, and to those whose lives were forever changed by the coming of intruders. – Beth Hanna