Réjeanne Padovani is a Canadian drama film from Quebec, written and directed by Denys Arcand and released in 1973.
[1] It was his second narrative feature film as a director, but the first for which he was also the screenwriter alongside novelist Jacques Benoît (who also wrote his previous solo effort).
An examination of political corruption,[2] the film stars Jean Lajeunesse as Vincent Padovani, a construction contractor with mafia ties who has just completed work on a major autoroute project, and is planning a major dinner party to thank the politicians who awarded him the contract.
However, as the dinner approaches his plans are disrupted, both professionally by the launch of a public protest by several families whose homes were expropriated for the highway construction and personally by the return of Réjeanne (Luce Guilbeault), his ex-wife who is now married into the family of rival contractor Sam Tannenbaum (Henry Gamer).
[6] During Quebec's Charbonneau Commission inquiry into corruption in the awarding of construction contracts in the early 2010s, the film received renewed attention with some media outlets calling it "prophetic".