After the usual summer filled with product that even the 19-year-olds to whom it was marketed turned up their collective noses, the fall slate of movies doesn’t even need to be all that good in order to make adult filmgoers happy. The mere presence of movies made for grownups instead of teenagers is all we ask for.

Short of spending years traveling around the world and living in different places, something few of us have either the time or money to do, the best way of learning about the lives of people in other countries is to watch movies made in those countries. For 15 years I’ve spent the end of August doing just that at the Montreal World Film Festival (WFF, or FFM to the cities’ majority Francophones).