RESOURCES

99 min, documentary, Canada, 2021
Directed byHubert Caron-Guay & Serge-Olivier Rondeau
Produced byLes Films de l'Autre - Hubert Caron-Guay and Serge-Olivier Rondeau
LanguagesSpanish, French

Short descriptionAn observational film about the meat industry in Quebec, where asylum seekers, mainly from Latin America, process a vast herd of livestock into meat. What is life like at various points along this chain ? - IDFA

Film subjects Emigration & Migration , Environment

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Film details

Synopsis

The meat industry is booming in Quebec, Canada, where huge factories use standardized production methods to convert vast herds of livestock into meat. They hire asylum seekers, mainly from Latin America, so they can continue to produce at competitive rates.

This observational film splits its focus between the workers and the animals; between the parallel lives whose paths are destined to cross in the factories. We see new arrivals talking with a community organization that mediates between the workers and the factory, their stories and expectations intercut with scenes of overcrowded pigsties and cows milked day in, day out, and giving birth in chains. Directors Hubert Caron-Guay and Serge-Olivier Rondeau also point the lens at the parched and utterly depleted earth, where nothing but corn can grow. Everything that takes place here is in service to optimizing production.

At a calm pace, and without any direct comment, we are witness to the living conditions of humans, animals, and crops alike, in this subtle and critical look at a world driven by capitalism and the living links in the chain that make this possible. – IDFA

Credits

Script : Hubert Caron-Guay et Serge-Olivier Rondeau

Images : Serge-Olivier Rondeau

Editing : Anouk Deschênes

Sound design : Samuel Gagnon-Thibodeau

Sound mix : Stéphane Bergeron

Sound : Hubert Caron-Guay

Direction

Hubert Caron-Guay

Hubert Caron-Guay is a producer, director, screenwriter and visual artist. He participated in the foundation of the Épopée group in 2010 where he coordinated and directed the most of his art project until 2015. His practice as a visual artist is at the intersection of cinema and installation art.

Filmography

Resources (2021/ 99 min)

Destierros (2017 / 90 min)
Fractures (installation) (2014 / 287 min)
Rupture (2014 / 150 min)
Insurgence (2013 / 137 minutes)
L’État du monde (2012 / 84 minutes)
L’État des lieux (2012 / 205 min)
L’État du moment (2011 / 95 minutes)

Serge-Olivier Rondeau

Serge-Olivier Rondeau is a filmmaker whose work intersects media arts and experimental ethnography. His films and installations explore the relationships between humans and non-humans—particularly animals, plants and technology. His work has appeared in numerous exhibits and festivals across Canada and internationally, including as a member of the group Épopée and co-founder of the After Faceb00k collective. Fractures, an installation featuring the films Ruptures and Insurgence and focusing on the Quebec student strikes of 2012, was featured at Manif d’Art 7. As part of the Mois de la Photo à Montréal, the McCord Museum exhibited In Loving Memory <3 an immersive nine-screen video dedicated to Facebook users who live on after death on the site’s servers. In 2021, he co-directed his first feature-length documentary Ressources with Hubert Caron-Guay, which made its premiere at IDFA. The film examines the modes of existence of animals, humans and landscapes caught up in the industrial meat production chain. The inheritors is his second documentary feature.

Filmography

THE INHERITORS, 2025, 79 min, Documentary

RESOURCES, 2021, 99 min, Documentary
GRAND NATIONAL, 2021, 21 min, Documentary

IN LOVING MEMORE <3, 2016, 45 min, Installation
FRACTURES, 2014, 287 min, Installation