1991 (film)


1991 is a Canadian comedy-drama film, directed by Ricardo Trogi and released in 2018. The third film in his semi-autobiographical series after 1981 and 1987, the film centres on Ricardo's 1991 trip to Italy to pursue a relationship with Marie-Ève.
The film finished 2018 as the year's top-grossing Canadian film, and was named the winner of the Golden Screen Award at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards. It received 16 Prix Iris nominations at the 21st Quebec Cinema Awards, including Best Film.

Plot

In 1991, when Ricardo is 21 and at university in Montréal, his friends are leaving for Western Canada or the United States. His destination, though, is Italy, not because he has heard the call of the great cultural capitals of Europe, but in order to pursue “the woman of his life.” In the movie 1981, the woman had been Anne Tremblay; in the movie 1987, it was Marie-Josée Lebel. Now in 1991, Ricardo Trogi determines to at last win the heart of the woman he considers his true soulmate, Marie-Ève Bernard. When she suggests they could meet in Perugia to study Italian, he promptly leaves to join her, and complications quickly ensue. Having lost his passport, most of his money and his letter of acceptance to the University of Perugia, he reports his loss to very solicitous Canadian Embassy staff in Rome and becomes appreciative that a referendum proposing Quebec's secession from Canada had failed to win a majority vote. He meets a rather engaging musician, the multilingual Arturo, who misjudges the nature of their friendship. The beautiful and insightful Georgia, whom he erroneously calls Yorda, falls in love with Ricardo and sometimes speaks to him in Greek, which he fails to understand; Ricardo, however, remains fixated on Marie-Ève, who clearly prefers the company of a Spanish layabout.

Accolades