Film screening: Les Fleurs Oubliées (Forgotten Flowers)

King’s College London and the Centre for Quebec and French-Canadian Studies (IMLR, University of London) are proud to present the UK premiere of renowned director André Forcier’s Les Fleurs Oubliées (Forgotten Flowers). This magical realist tale takes inspiration from the real- life figure of Brother Marie-Victorin, who founded Montreal’s Botanical Gardens and wrote the seminal work on the Flora of Quebec, La Flore laurentienne. Co-written by Forcier and Linda Pinet, it takes the ecological uncertainty of our current era and gives the great botanist, who died in 1944, a role in fighting the forces of agrochemical hegemony that threaten the biodiversity of our planet today.

The film will be preceded by the launch of Lettres aux Frère Marie-Victorin (Montréal: Boréal, 2019), a volume of personal correspondence on human sexuality between botanist and educator Marcelle Gauvreau and her mentor and colleague (edited and prefaced by Dr Craig Moyes, Director of the CQFCS and Yves Gingras, Canada Research Chair in the History and Sociology of Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal).

The film will be followed by a Q&A with celebrated Québécois actor, Yves Jacques, who plays Marie-Victorin in the film.

The film is 1 hour 45 minutes in length and is in French with English subtitles.

This event is free and open to all.