Jazz and cinema make a perfect pairing, and Montreal is about to prove it. The National Film Board of Canada and the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal have teamed up for CINÉJAZZ, a free program of music-centered films running June 26 through July 4 at 3 p.m. at the Alanis Obomsawin Theatre.
The screenings take place inside the NFB’s Îlot Balmoral headquarters, just steps from Place des Festivals at the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles. The series gives filmgoers a chance to dig into the cultural forces behind jazz on screen, with a lineup of acclaimed music documentaries alongside a landmark of Quebec cinema.
Before each feature, audiences will see “Oscar,” Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre’s touching MJSTP Films/NFB co-produced short portrait of Montreal jazz legend Oscar Peterson. It’s a fitting overture for a program this rich.
The opening night film, “RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World,” tells an essential and long-overlooked chapter of American music, the Indigenous influence, featuring icons like Charley Patton, Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix and Robbie Robertson. The series moves through “Maroon: On the Trail of Creoles in North America,” which traces the Creole roots that helped birth jazz, and the intimate 1965 Direct Cinema classic “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen,” which catches the poet at the dawn of his career in his hometown.
The final weekend brings “The Cat in the Bag,” Gilles Groulx’s defining work of Quebec cinema scored with music from John Coltrane’s ‘Blue World,’ followed by “Show Girls,” a celebration of Montreal’s swinging Black jazz scene from the 1920s to the 1960s, told through three women who danced in legendary clubs like Rockhead’s Paradise.
The screenings unfold during one of the world’s great music gatherings. Recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest jazz festival on the planet, the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal has spent over 40 years bringing living legends and rising stars together, with more than 350 concerts across ten days, two-thirds of them free open-air shows.
CINÉJAZZ Screening Schedule:
Friday, June 26 — RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World by Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana (1 h 42 min)
Saturday, June 27 — Maroon: On the Trail of Creoles in North America by André Gladu (1 h 25 min)
Sunday, June 28 — Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen by Donald Brittain and Don Owen (44 min)
Friday, July 3 — The Cat in the Bag by Gilles Groulx (1 h 13 min)
Saturday, July 4 — Show Girls by Meilan Lam and Robert Paquin (52 min)