Skip to main content
Le chat dans le sac film image; woman smoking a pipe

John Coltrane's Blue World:

The Mike Allen Trio + Le chat dans le sac

VIFF Live

This event has passed

Get your tickets at the early bird price of $18 before September 5. Regular tickets will be $25.

Sixty years ago, inspired by Jean-Luc Godard and John Cassavetes, Gilles Groulx made a French-Canadian nouvelle vague movie in Montreal. Le chat dans le sac is a portrait of an earnest, self-absorbed young man — a would-be revolutionary — and his exploitative relationship with a naive theatre student. To compose the score, Groulx turned to bebop saxophonist John Coltrane… whose score was finally released in 2022 as the album Blue World. The film is a fascinating time capsule capturing Montreal in the early 60s, the cultural currents of the time (with newspapers looming large), and the sexual attitudes of the period. This screening will be preceded by a live jazz concert by the Mike Allen Trio.

Mike Allen is a legendary tenor saxophonist who has been at the forefront of the Canadian Jazz scene for 30 years. Known for his work with everybody from Michael Bublé to Sonny Greenwich, Mike is particularly adept at interpreting the music of John Coltrane. Before this special screening of Le chat dans le sac (The Cat in the Bag) Mike will be joined by Adam Thomas on bass, and Julian MacDonough on drums, for a unique performance featuring the music of Coltrane’s Blue Room (featuring the soundtrack of the film), and other Coltrane compositions.

Join us as we celebrate the 98th birthday of John Coltrane and the 60th Anniversary of a French Canadian classic.

An accomplished musician who has studied Coltrane in depth and forged a style that is fresh and vital

Jazz Journal International

Director

Gilles Groulx

Cast

Barbara Ulrich, Claude Godbout, Manon Blain, Véronique Vilbert, Jean-Paul Bernier, André Leblanc

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

1964

Language

In French with English subtitles

19+
73 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Screenwriter

Gilles Groulx

Editor

Gilles Groulx

Original Music

John Coltrane, Antonio Vivaldi, François Couperin

Also Playing

Kryptic

Dir. Kourtney Roy
96 min

Oozing psycho-sexual anxiety, Kourtney Roy's fascinating feminist horror movie feints toward creature-feature quirk, but morphs into something much stranger. Chloe Pirrie plays a double role, or maybe Everywoman, adrift in a world of men and monsters.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Mary Ancheta Plays Betty Davis Tribute

Dir. Phil Cox
150 min

In this VIFF Live event, keyboardist Mary Ancheta and her band channel the phenomenal funk of 70s sensation Betty Davis, featuring Dawn Pemberton on vocals. The live music portion of the event will be followed by Phil Cox's invaluable 2017 documentary, They Say I'm Different.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

A Woman Under the Influence

Dir. John Cassavetes
155 min

Gena Rowlands is extraordinary in this painful and compassionate trial of love, the most intense and essential movie from legendary independent filmmaker John Cassavetes. "The toughest of all great American films." Kent Jones

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Are We Done Now?

Dir. Ben Immanuel
84 min

Down River director Ben Immanuel returns with a wry, self-aware Covid comedy in which a socially distant Vancouver documentarian checks in with a stressed-out therapist (Gabrielle Miller) and several of her patients over the course of the pandemic.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Encampments

Dir. Michael T. Workman & Kei Pritsker
82 min

When pro-Palestine protests took hold of Columbia last year, the filmmakers were there from the beginning. This documentary charts the mounting tensions between students and the administration, as the protests were picked up across North America.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Mambar Pierrette

Dir. Rosine Mbakam
93 min

The third and final film of the spring session of African Cinema Now is the first dramatic feature from Cameroonian non-fiction filmmaker Rosine Mbakam (Chez Jolie Coiffure), an imaginative portrait of a seamstress.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre