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Elephant has made 40 Québécois films available to rent on iTunes in the US, Europe and Africa with the aim of expanding to their full catalog of 200 titles. It looks like there's a good initial offering, including films by Claude Jutra, Denys Arcand, Michel Brault and Jean-Pierre Lefebvre.

No subtitled versions yet?

Michael Kerpan wrote:No subtitled versions yet?

The ones on iTunes Canada have English subtitles.

A number of things on that list that I want to see (like Kamouraska).

Lots of good stuff.

I've given À tout prendre a rental and it seems to be a bit problematic. There's optional English subs and also a choice between the original French track and an English dub. However, those English subs are seemingly only for about one line in every twenty and two of those subtitled lines have consisted of "BLAH BLAH BLAH" and "YAP YAP YAP". Even my extremely limited knowledge of French is enough to tell me that certainly wasn't what was coming out of the characters' mouths. The subtitles appear to come more readily from the 10 minute mark, but I still don't think they're entirely accurate translations. I'll try out the dub. I also rented Kamouraska without checking À tout prendre first so I'll also have a look at that one later.

EDIT: It appears to be only a partial English dub and those parts where the track switches to French are the parts they've chosen to subtitle. Clearly not ideal.

À tout prendre was originally part of the NFB's Jutra box set -- but seems to have been dropped from the second pressing of this set. I can't recall now whether this had portions in English or not....

Having now watched it in its entirety (it's a fantastic film), it's clearer to me how they've approached the subtitling. The only lines dubbed in the English audio track are narration/internal voice - dialogue is left in the original French and is subtitled. The parts that are dubbed in English have not been subtitled, and as there is only one subtitle track these lines are also left unsubtitled if you select the French audio track. I've emailed Elephant with some feedback and asked them to address the issue but it's perfectly enjoyable - if a bit jarring - as it is.

Elephant have said to me that the film is supposed to be a French / English hybrid, so I'll retract my earlier comments and apologise for my mistake! Kamouraska looked wonderful.

Has anyone explored this catalog further, and if so, can you comment on the English subtitle situation for any of the other films?