08 Dec Roundtable : First feature documentaries
8
Dec
Roundtable : First feature documentaries
Meetup - Documentary Cinema - Fall 2025
Monday December 8, 2025
6 pm - 9 pm
Main Film Atelier
2025 Rue Parthenais #304-A, Montréal, Quebec, H2K 3T2
Guests | Vincent Toi (Séga : la musique de l’océan Indien), Shahab Mihandoust (Meezan), and Yann-Manuel Hernandez (Tout sur Margo)
Free upon registration
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to attend a meeting with several experienced documentary filmmakers who will share their visions and experiences around a decisive stage in the career of any director: the creation of their first feature-length documentary. During this discussion, the speakers will address the main challenges encountered at this crucial stage, from writing the film to organizing the shoot, including production preparation and distribution strategies. Making a first feature-length documentary involves artistic, logistical, and human choices that are often complex and sometimes unexpected.
For more information, please send an email to: services@mainfilm.qc.ca
A Main Film #MainArtist, Vincent Toi is a Mauritian-Canadian filmmaker based in Montreal. Born in Mauritius, his work explores the lasting effects of colonialism by examining the power structures that continue to shape postcolonial and diasporic communities.
Through cinema, Vincent seeks to build bridges between cultures and histories, creating narratives that are both intimate and politically engaged. His films have been screened at major international festivals, including the Berlinale, the Toronto International Film Festival, Hot Docs, and the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, and have been praised for their seamless blend of fiction and documentary as well as their poetic and incisive storytelling.
About Séga, la musique de l’océan Indien
Séga is a musical documentary that follows a young Mauritian musician on her journey to rediscover her Creole identity through sega, the traditional music of the Indian Ocean.
Born in Guatemala and based in Montreal, Quebec, Yann-Manuel Hernandez is a filmmaker and cinematographer known for his bold and innovative works that blur the line between fiction and documentary. In 2016, he co-founded Les mains sales films, a company dedicated to hybrid and experimental cinema. His films explore themes of identity, memory, and trauma, and have been acclaimed at international festivals such as Fantasia, Dresden, and RIDM. His first feature film, Déserts, opened the Nouveaux Alchimistes section of the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in 2016, while his latest film, Tout sur Margo, was selected for the official competition at RIDM 2024. He is currently developing Les ombres du volcan, winner of an award at DOCLAB RIDM 2024 and selected for SODEC Création émergente.
About Tout sur Margo :
Margo, a somewhat lost actress, leaves her routine in Paris to shoot a film in Portugal. As she seeks to embody her character in fiction, she gradually finds the true path to herself. Tout sur Margo takes a touching look at a young woman, Margo, who is going through a period of personal and spiritual transformation. Shot in the style of a documentary and borrowing heavily from cinéma vérité, this hybrid film explores the theme of authenticity in a friendship between a man and a woman, presented here as a possible salvation for its protagonists.
Shahab Mihandoust is a documentary filmmaker based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. His work is inspired by ethnographic approaches to filmmaking and focuses on the everyday practices that shape relationships between people and places. Shahab holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a specialization in film production from Concordia University. His first feature-length documentary, Meezan (Scale), premiered at the RIDM in 2023.
About de Meezan :
Khuzestan, located in southwestern Iran, is a landscape marked by numerous scars. Accumulated throughout its history of colonization, industrialization, revolution, and war, these scars define a place steeped in its past. In Meezan, the memory of this Iranian province, where conflicts and wars linked to oil in particular have arisen, is approached through the perspective of the workers. In three parts, the manual labor of workers in maritime-related tasks and professions comes together to create a polyphony of movements, sounds, and colors with the aim of creating a sensory conversation, questioning the physical relationship of a population that inhabits a place steeped in the history that defines it despite itself.