RED SQUARE ON A BLACK BOARD takes us into the heart of the 2012 student crisis to experience from the inside one of the most important social movements in Quebec history. In cinema verité style, the camera stays with the members of the largest student organisation, the CLASSE, as the crisis unfolds. We follow Maxime, Victoria and Justin, as well as the two official spokespersons Gabriel and Jeanne through the dramatic ups and downs of the strike. We have privileged access behind the scenes to experience with them the intense public debate that raged for weeks during the so-called the Maple Leaf Spring (Printemps érable) : executive committee meetings, media strategizing, press conferences, huge student assemblies, debates, votes, street demonstrations, negotiations, demands, as well as the exhaustion, discouragement… and doubts.
RED SQUARE ON A BLACK BOARD traces the day-by-day anatomy of the student resistance and its main actors to reveal a militant movement of committed and inspired youth.