Montreal – Halima Elkhatabi’s feature-length documentary Cohabiter (Living Together), produced by the NFB, hits theatres in Montreal on September 13, screening at Cinéma Beaubien and Cinémathèque Québécoise. The film’s theatrical release in its original French version follows its world premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where it was selected alongside another of Elkhatabi’s films, the narrative short Fantas.
To kick off the theatrical release of Living Together, a red-carpet event will be held at Cinéma Beaubien on Friday, September 13, at 7 p.m., with the Montreal director returning from Toronto to attend, along with the film’s cast and crew. A Q&A will be held after the screening. The filmmaker will also be present at the Cinémathèque Québécoise screening on Saturday, September 14, at 8 p.m.
In scenes filmed in 15 Montreal apartments, several young people looking to share living quarters show us who they are in Cohabiter (Living Together). Fifty-two people were filmed to create the doc, featuring a diverse wealth of multicultural, multiethnic, multigenerational and multigender encounters. It’s a vivid portrait of modern-day Montreal—and contemporary life in any big city. In a time of post-pandemic global housing and inflation crisis, the film paints a disarmingly compassionate picture of people’s deep desire to forge genuine connections, despite their differences.
The film will be available Canada-wide in October.
About the film
Cohabiter (Living Together) by Halima Elkhatabi (75 min)
Produced by Nathalie Cloutier for the NFB
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/living-together
- The debut feature-length documentary by a filmmaker with a compassionate eye, Cohabiter (Living Together) maps a contemporary mosaic of cultures and ideas, with explorations of community, individualism and the housing crisis in constant interplay.
- The director paints a complex and engaging picture of a generation accustomed to playing all their identity cards to find their place in the world. From the start, the questions and answers run the gamut, each person seeking to define their individuality while probing that of the other. Everyone reveals themselves with candour and vulnerability, hoping for that rare discovery: someone to share their space with who also shares their values.
- The film broaches: gender issues, feminism, polyamory, the patriarchy, eating disorders, body image, neurodiversity, mental health, diversity and inclusion, the housing market, lifestyles, loneliness, social media, travel, career aspirations, the arts and philosophy, values and self-awareness, and much more.
About the filmmaker
Born in France, Halima Elkhatabi is a Montreal writer and director of Moroccan descent. A graduate of the Institut national de l’image et du son, Elkhatabi works in documentary and fiction film, as well as audio documentary production. She was a co-director of the NFB collaborative doc St-Henri, the 26th of August, directed the short fiction film Nina (Canada’s Top Ten at TIFF in 2015) and authored the podcasts La route du bled, Chloé et Abdi, Songe d’une nuit d’hiver and La route de l’Eldorado. Cohabiter (Living Together) is her debut feature-length documentary.