Movie Description

Mon oncle Antoine is a 1971 National Film Board of Canada (Office national du film du Canada) French language drama film. Quebecois director Claude Jutra co-wrote the screenplay with Clement Perron and directed what is one of the most acclaimed works in Canadian film history.

The film examines life in the Maurice Duplessis-era Asbestos Region of rural Quebec prior to the Asbestos Strike of 1949. Set at Christmas time, the story is told from the point of view of a 15-year-old boy (Benoit, played by Jacques Gagnon) coming of age in a mining town. The Asbestos Strike is regarded by Quebec historians as a seminal event in the years prior to the Quiet Revolution. Jutra's film is an examination of the social conditions in Quebec's old, agrarian, conservative and cleric-dominated society on the eve of the social and political changes that transformed the province a decade later.

The film has twice been voted the greatest Canadian film ever in the Sight & Sound poll, which is conducted once each decade. The Toronto International Film Festival placed it first in the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time three times.