A scene from Robin Aubert's film A l'origine d'un cri (Crying Out). (Philippe Bossé/Max Films)

If auteur cinema reflects the soul of a culture, then it appears Quebec society is in a state of mourning. The emotionally penetrating features that bookend the 2010 edition of Montreal's premiere independent film event, the Festival du Nouveau Cinema (Oct. 13-23), are, like so many films released here in the last five years, deeply sad.

If auteur cinema reflects the soul of a culture, then it appears Quebec society is in a state of mourning.

Opening this year’s FNC is 10 1/2, a feature directed by PODZ (a.k.a. Daniel Grou), which follows the life of a boy in the social welfare system who can only express himself with violence. Denis Côte’s Curling, which picked up the best director award at the Locarno International Film Festival, is the story of a loving but controlling father who isolates his daughter in the countryside to protect her from the outside world.

Depressed after sitting through a slate of press screenings, Montreal Gazette film critic Brendan Kelly pleaded with local filmmakers in late September to “lighten up.”

“A Variety reviewer referred to my film as ‘another slice of art-house misery from Quebec,’” Côte tells me when I ask him about the theme of social isolation running through so many contemporary films. “I disagree with what he said, but there is obviously something going on here.” (What the reviewer actually wrote was that Curling was “another slice of art-house misery from Québécois director Denis Côte.”)

This season's crop is indeed painful to watch at times. In Route 132, filmmaker Louis Bélanger explores the despair of a father whose five-year-old son suddenly dies. In Catherine Martin's drama Trois temps apres la mort d'Anna (Mourning for Anna), a woman takes her family to their ancestral home in rural Quebec after her daughter is murdered. But it's Robin Aubert's A l'origine d'un cri (Crying Out), about three generations of dysfunctional men, that stands apart for its relentlessly bleak worldview. Aubert’s film opens with a lengthy depiction of the sexual assault of a young boy; later in the film, a middle-aged man overcome by grief for his dead wife digs up her grave, grabs the corpse and hits the road.

These films, like those of Quebec New Wave directors like Yves-Christian Fournier (Tout est parfait) and Rafaël Ouellet (Derriere), are minimalist and slow-paced and marked by the influence of filmmakers like Roy Andersson, Darren Aronofsky, Gus Van Sant and Bruno Dumont. The dialogue is sparse and the takes long. The pictures are a response to the blistering speed of contemporary media and the wave of crowd-pleasing, commercially successful, nostalgic films released in the past decade (La Grande Séduction, Les Boys 4, C.R.A.Z.Y.), which portray modern Quebec culture as homogenous and confident about its ability to resolve conflict.

“I'm definitely reacting to the slick films we make here. They have such high production values. One of the biggest compliments I got about Curling was that it reminded someone of Quebec films from the 1970s,” says Côte.

Many of the characters in these films seem adrift without the spiritual or emotional resources to connect to others. As a result, they cope with death, alcoholism, sexual abuse, suicide and illness, their pain only magnified by their loneliness.

Côté believes the reason that isolation is a through-line in contemporary Quebec cinema is due to francophones’ status as a linguistic minority in North America. “The more I travel, the more I observe that Quebec is closed in on itself,” says Côté. “This is what makes us interesting, but I think because we are surrounded by English speakers, we have a fear of the Other. We are obsessed with the idea that we are going to be invaded by outsiders. So perhaps that makes us afraid of the outside world.”

Or perhaps Quebec's outsider status makes this province's artists more keenly aware of the failings of North American culture. Directors like Côté were shaped by Quebec’s cultural shift away from the community and towards the individual.

“English Canada is more community-oriented than Quebec, in my view,” says Côté.

He also says that the new roster of Quebec directors “are products of the suburbs. We didn't learn about cinema going to the theatre with other people. I learned about films watching VHS tapes in a suburban basement, alone. That's my perspective.”

Grou (PODZ) says the reason Quebec directors appear obsessed with social alienation is because they are simply reflecting what's happening around the world.

“More and more people are feeling alone, despite the fact that there is Facebook and the internet. We are supposed to be more connected now, but it's just through a keyboard, not through real contact with others,” he says. “Social isolation could also be a metaphor for death. People are feeling alone and are afraid of being alone, and especially of dying alone. All these films seem to be exploring this fact.”

This isn't surprising. If there is one thing organized religion knows how to manage, it's death; there are time-tested rituals in place to organize life when people are faced with the ultimate void. Bélanger’s Route 132 deftly addresses the inability of modern, post-Catholic Quebecers to manage loss. Perhaps the most inspiring and hopeful of the recent Quebec releases, Route 132 follows a rational yet angry sociologist named Gilles who goes on a road trip down after his small child dies. Route 132 is not only the longest highway in Quebec, but it passes through the Bas-Saint-Laurent, or the Lower Saint Lawrence river region, viewed by many here as the cradle of Francophone culture in North America.

On his excursion, Gilles connects with the extended family he has forgotten and the traditional Catholic culture of which he has grown contemptuous. Ultimately, his fury is transformed into acceptance. Route 132 is a film about loss, of both loved ones and the religion and culture that for centuries gave structure and meaning to people's lives. Bélanger has said publicly that he believes that the recent slate of darkly themed films out of Quebec might be about more about memory than death.

“Take Denis Villeneuve's Incendies or Robin's film, A l'origine d'un cri. What are the characters searching for? They're searching to figure out where they fit in a long chain. That's what happens in my film. [Gilles] finds his old aunt. But I have to admit, it's strange. I don't really have an answer."

The Festival du Nouveau Cinema runs to Oct. 23.

Patricia Bailey is a writer and broadcaster based in Montreal.