Montreal, My Beautiful

Two working-class Montrealers yearn to feel themselves fully—one a closed-off Chinese immigrant and depanneur co-owner in her early 50s, the other a spirited 30-year-old Québécoise cafe worker. Their attraction fostered by Montreal in all its summer splendour, its Chinatown streets, chic Village restos, and backyards bursting with life. In a deeply personal role, legendary actress Joan Chen (The Wedding Banquet, Saving Face) plays Feng Xia. Struggling with a physical and familial dry spell, she ditches language classes to turn French into her language of new love when, through a dating site, she meets Camille (award-winning Quebecer Charlotte Aubin). They stroll through jewel-like parks and attempt intimacy. But touch seems to scald Feng Xia, as if every fibre in her body believes herself to be unworthy. And feeling the pull of her old life in China, she must decide to connect or wither. Montréal, ma belle is a tale of first loves—past and present—from Chinese-Canadian director Xiaodan He, the first Chinese immigrant to receive grants from Quebec and Canada for a feature. A poignant, gorgeously shot film that, for the first time in the Asian diaspora, centers a Chinese lesbian protagonist longing to cast off repression.

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