The Torrent

Directed by Simon Lavoie

It’s 1922 in the Quebec countryside, and Claudine Perreault has big plans for her son, François. He’ll enter the priesthood so that God will forgive her for bearing a child out of wedlock. But 17-year-old François is dead set against joining the seminary. Enraged, Claudine strikes him so violently he goes deaf. After his mother’s death, François begins a different kind of relationship with a woman when he buys the wild and aloof young Amica from an Innu peddler.