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Montreal Gazette

Friday on My Mind: This weekend is all about festivals, starting with dance/theatre blowout Festival TransAmériques

Entertainment And Life By Friday on My Mind is a highly subjective, curated rundown of five of the cooler things happening in Montreal on the weekend. Festival TransAmériques All weekend at various venues It is actually kind of nuts how many cultural festivals we have in Montreal, but what's even nuttier is the fact that almost all of them have a loyal audience that shows up every year. This week's column is devoted to four festivals (and one film series) and I'd bet you I could probably find five festivals to showcase every weekend between now and Labour Day. Oh and by the way, I'm not complaining! Festival TransAmériques is the perfect example of our city's booming fest scene where there is something for everyone. It focuses on theatre and dance with a resolutely international bent. Half the shows are from other countries, the other half are Canadian and about 80 per cent of the Canadian fare comes from right here in Montreal. Every year they pull in around 40,000 spectators for their mix of ticketed indoor shows and free alfresco events. There are 21 shows this year, with artists from 23 countries. The 19th edition opened Thursday with the North American première of Lacrima (running through Sunday), created by Caroline Guiela Nguyen, the head of Théâtre national de Strasbourg. It focuses on the entire behind-the-scenes process of a Parisian house of haute couture making a dress for a British princess, going from the high-stakes Paris fashion world to a workshop in Alençon in Normandy to an embroidery workshop in Mumbai. The festival really 'looks at what the burning issues of our times are,' said Martine Dennewald, co-artistic director of the FTA with Jessie Mill. 'The pieces can be about the climate crisis or about all the different stories of the different diasporas, where people come from and what they bring to our modern metropolises. But it can also be about the form a show takes. Generally the FTA is bold, ambitious. Artists really try to break new ground here. And that's nice because you don't need to have a biography as a spectator. You don't need to have seen the classics. You don't need to be a regular theatregoer to appreciate what our artists are doing.' All shows are surtitled in both French and English if they're in another language. Mile End en Fête Friday through Sunday at v arious spots in Mile End There's all kinds of free fun stuff happening in the almost irritatingly hip neighbourhood on the weekend — everything from visiting the fire station on Laurier Ave. to face-painting for kids at the car wash just down the street from the firehouse. There are shows with local artists at the site of the car wash, with a lineup including DJ Yuki, Laroie and Socalled. Montreal Comic Arts Festival Friday through Sunday on St-Denis St. between Gilford and Roy Sts. This festival devoted to comics (called Festival BD de Montréal in French) features over 60 free activities with 320 creators and 170 exhibitors, all happening on St-Denis St., which will be closed to car traffic between Gilford and Roy Sts. for the weekend. There will be panels, including one titled How to Kill a City on gentrification in comics, with acclaimed Montreal underground comic creator Rick Trembles. There are creative workshops open to all, including manga and zine-making conferences. One of the themes this year is Swiss comics, with eight comic-book creators from Switzerland on hand. NDG Art Hop Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at various artists' studios in N.D.G. NDG Art Hop, which was created in 2017, is designed to help support local artists by having them open up their studios to the public for two days. 'Our mission is to share the importance of art in any community,' said Helen Fortin, one of the artists who is participating. 'Art gets everyone together. I've been in it for three years and for me it's been very successful. A lot of people come out. People do buy art. But I always emphasize it's not a sale. It's about underlining the importance of art.' Fortin's paintings are mostly abstract landscapes. The website includes a map showing the locations of the approximately 20 studios that are part of the festival. Alphaville Friday and Saturday at 9:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Cinéma du Parc The classic Jean-Luc Godard film Alphaville is screening as part of Cinéma du Parc's Dystopia series, which is a subset of the cool movie house's Parc at Midnight series — though just to complicate matters, the movies don't actually screen at midnight, because apparently people can't stay up as late as we used to back in the day when we caught midnight movies on a regular basis. All you need to know is that Alphaville is one of the wildest, most fun movies I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. It's Godard at his 1960s best, mixing up wacky sci-fi with pulp film noir, and it stars the absolutely fantastic duo of Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina. Go see it!