''The Other Side of November'' (french: L'autre côté de novembre) is a 2016

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

feature film produced, written and directed by

Maryanne Zéhil Maryanne Zéhil is a Lebanese-Canadian film producer, director, screenwriter, and author. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, she has lived in Montreal, Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) i ...

. The cast includes Arsinée Khanjian,

Pascale Bussières Pascale Bussières (born June 27, 1968) is a French Canadian actress. Life and work Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Pascale Bussières first attracted attention as a suicidal teenager in Micheline Lanctôt’s 1984 film '' Sonatine''; however ...

, Marc Labrèche, Raïa Haïdar, Béatrice Moukhaiber and an array of Lebanese actors and actresses. The film is a drama dealing with disappearing memory, choices that transform one’s destiny, and how societies shape people by offering them lives that are diametrically opposed to ones they could have lived elsewhere.

Plot

In ''The Other Side of November'', a woman is granted two lives: Léa (played by Arsinée Khanjian), is a bourgeois neurosurgeon living in

, and Layla (also played by Arsinée Khanjian), is a humble seamstress in a small village in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

. These two paths illuminate two different societies and their influence on self-realization. Time and fragmented memories are used playfully to tell the story. The question at the heart of the film is: If someone chose a different path in life years ago, would they still be the same person today?

Cast

Inspiration

Having left Lebanon in 1995 to settle in Quebec, Zehil draws from her own experience to tell this story. She quickly realized that "once you leave your country, settle in another, and integrate completely in order to rebuild your life, there is no way back." She constructs the story from this inevitability by relying on some of her most cherished themes: one’s country of birth, the country that becomes a new home, being human, the place of women in society, and the struggle between what is acquired and what is innate. Zehil uses the loss of memory—whether caused by illness or a deliberate choice—as a foundation, in an attempt to separate free will from that which is predestined, a choice or destiny she says she can no longer escape.

Festivals

Festival du Nouveau Cinéma The Festival du nouveau cinéma or FNC (English: ''Festival of New Cinema'') is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, featuring independent films from around the world. Over 160,000 people attend each year. One of ...

* Sherbrooke World Film Festival * Outaouais Film Festival

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Other Side of November, The 2016 films 2016 drama films Canadian drama films Quebec films Films set in Quebec French-language Canadian films 2010s Canadian films