Nicola-Frank Vachon

In 1988, in Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, an 11-years-old boy is worried for his grandmother's life. Worn out by illness, the old storyteller tries to convince her grandson that Death no longer exists. Her story will bring back to life the extraordinary people from the village in 1927 who, by using rocambolesque tricks, will eliminate Death that threatens them. From now on, Death will coincide with the birth of legends.

Montreal, Winter 2002. Stéphane, 19 years old, fan of Metal, student in graphic design, dreams of becoming an illustrator. But for months he has been caught in a threatening spiral: he is addicted to games. Indebted, without an apartment, avoiding his friends to whom he owes money, Stéphane takes a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant in a major Italian restaurant in Montreal in order to get by. There, he will meet Bébert, a cook who burns the candle at both ends, and Greg, a waiter with disreputable actions. Will Stéphane make it through this new job or will he fall into a downward spiral of bad choices?

With the villagers of Saint-Élie-de-Caxton barely having enough food to survive, Ésimésac convinces them to collaborate on a community garden. Each person will multiply his or her yield by cultivating the land together. At the same time, talk of a new railway line promises to connect Saint-Élie-de-Caxton to the rest of the world and brings the hope of abundance. Riopel, the hulking blacksmith, starts working on the railway track and convinces the locals to invest in his project rather than waste their time playing in the garden. Ésimésac’s big project flounders under the weight of metal. But can he really stop progress?

One evening, at the bend of an alley, an ordinary man surprises two young people who have just committed a crime. In panic, the teenagers take this witness hostage and drag him into their escape. Then begins for two generations that everything separates, an inner journey which will mark the three souls forever.

12-years-old Manon promises her younger brother, Mimi, that they will stay together, despite their difficult family circumstances and the ominous signs of being put into foster care. During the height of Quebec's FLQ Crisis in 1970, they stage their own rebellion by kidnapping an elderly woman and hiding her in the country, aided by their two cousins.

After the death of her unfaithful husband, Gisele, a social worker of 52 years, falls madly in love with Yannick, one of her former customers and kleptomaniac addict. She tries to repress her feelings, but the attraction she has for this 19 year old boy is beyond comprehension. Her sister, her boss and two children will each turn, disrupt her secret meetings with her young lover.

In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family