November 1991: Working with students in her acting and directing class at Montreal’s Concordia University, Micheline Lanctot is struck by one young woman who reminds her of an actress she worked with in Sonatine. Lanctot fantasizes about the connections between these two. Eventually, she hits on the storyline for Deux Actrices, dealing with the reconciliation of estranged sisters.

The script for the film, intended as more of a sketch open to improvisation than a bible text, is hammered out in three weeks. Envisioning an experimental and didactic structure, Lanctot decides to incorporate the rehearsal process into the storyline of the film, recording it on Hi-8 videotape.

December 1991: Believing politically and philosophically that ‘Canada is a small, underdeveloped country that should make small, underdeveloped films’, Lanctot resolves to produce the film herself through her company Stopfilm for as small a budget as possible.

April 1992: Pierre Latour of Max Films Distribution in Montreal agrees to distribute Deux Actrices. He takes the script to Radio-Quebec, the most likely broadcaster to get involved with this adventure.

March 1992: Lanctot applies for a Canada Council production grant and is awarded $47,650 towards the production costs. She contacts her actresses and gathers a crew together.

April 1992: Lanctot signs an initial agreement with the National Film Board for processing of the negative and work print.

Spring 1992: Pascale Paroissien, who is cast to play Fabienne in the film, donates her apartment as the sole location of the production. The shooting takes place over 18 days in May and June, with Pascale Bussieres playing Solange and Lanctot’s students filling several of the crew positions. To help keep the production costs down, cast and crew alike agree to a 25% pay deferral.

June 1992: Lanctot receives confirmation from Radio-Quebec and Max Films advances the guaranteed minimum of $50,000 towards the production costs.

Fall 1992: A second Canada Council grant of $25,000 finances the post-production as Lanctot and her former student-turned-actress, now assistant editor, Paroissien, cut the film and video down to 95 minutes.

The sharp resolution of the Hi-8 video footage proves to be a bit of an aesthetic problem, necessitating an on-line processing to roughen up the image to make it visually distinguishable from the 16mm footage.

April 21, 1993: Lanctot signs a final agreement with the nfb to cover the additional post-production services, including video-to-film transfer services, neg cutting, optical sound transfer, timing and test prints. The nfb estimates its total contribution at between $40,000 and $50,000 in technical services.

April 1993: Paroissien changes hats yet again to become the film’s sound editor.

May 1993: The film is mixed in four days at Studio Marko in Montreal and sent back to the nfb for transfer to optical sound for inclusion in the answer print.

Various test prints are pulled over the summer.

Aug. 1, 1993: Lanctot approves the answer print for the film.

Sept. 16, 1993: The film will have its world premiere in the Perspective Canada program of the Toronto Festival of Festivals.