Montréal, Ma Belle
directed by
Ontario Premiere
Xiaodan He
Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother living in Montreal, has spent her life shaped by duty — to her family, her culture, and a loveless marriage. But when she meets Camille, a spirited young Québécoise, a long-buried desire is awakened. Her awakening becomes a profound reckoning with identity, exile, and the steep cost of liberation.
Programmer's Notes
In Montreal, My Beautiful, director Xiaodan He crafts a deeply personal and evocative portrait of late-blooming sensuality and cultural displacement. Feng Xia (Joan Chen), a Chinese mother living in Montreal, has spent her life in quiet service to an unfulfilling marriage and tradition. Experiencing menopause and fluctuating emotions, she begins to consider her deepest desires. When she meets Camille (Charlotte Aubin), a younger Québécoise, her long-buried sexuality is awakened—setting off a tender and tumultuous journey of self-discovery.
Set during a sun-drenched Montreal summer, the film beautifully explores the tension between duty and freedom, exile and identity, repression and release. As Feng Xia chooses to lean into the yearning for the first time, she confronts the emotional toll of breaking free from deep-rooted expectations.
With poetic realism and a rare focus on the middle-aged queer experience, Xiaodan He offers a powerful meditation on belonging, courage, and the steep cost of liberation. A daring, emotionally charged work from a singular voice in Canadian cinema.
- Safia Abdigir
Cast
Joan Chen, Charlotte Aubin
About the Director
Xiaodan He, a Montreal based Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, studied film production at the Beijing Film Academy. In 2013, she founded Red Dawn Productions through which she developed and produced five feature projects, fiction and documentary, financed by major Quebec and Canadian institutions—including The Dance of the Star, Cairo Calling, The Fall of Womenland, A Touch of Spring and My Father’s Journey.