Fall 1988: Montreal’s Productions du Regard producer Jean-Roch Marcotte (Portion d’eternite, Alisee) acquires the film rights to Monique Proulx’s latest novel, Le Sexe des etoiles, published by Editions Quebec/Amerique the preceding year.

At the heart of the story is Camille, a 12-year-old who privately observes the starry sky as she awaits the return of her father, Pierre-Henri. Absent for many years, he turns up on her doorstep one momentous evening, sexually transformed into Marie-Pierre. Unable to recreate her ‘normal’, longed-for past, Camille is forced to make difficult decisions about her future.

Proulx writes several drafts.

Fall 1991: The project advances slowly until Proulx suggests Paule Baillargeon (Sonia, Solo) as the film’s director. A sixth or seventh version of the screenplay is prepared by Proulx, with Baillargeon confirmed as the director.

Marcotte speaks with five distributors about the film and settles on Armand Lafond of Prima Film. ‘I wouldn’t accept a guarantee of less than $250,000,’ says Marcotte.

Inundated with work, including coproducing the France/Canada coproduction L’Homme sur le quai, Marcotte decides he doesn’t want to produce Le Sexe des etoiles on his own. He approaches Bloom Films producer Pierre Gendron (Jesus de Montreal, Kabloonak), who agrees to enter the project as a full partner.

Summer 1992: Telefilm Canada expresses some doubts about the screenplay and asks for a final version. After a complicated dispute surrounding the film’s distribution, C/FP Distribution and Christian Larouche become Le Sexe’s distributor.

A request for production financing is deposited with sogic, the Quebec funding agency.

September 1992: Telefilm agrees to back the production, which heads into preproduction less than five weeks before the start of principal photography.

November 1992: Le Sexe des etoiles is shot on 35mm film over 35 days, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 18.

The budget is $2.7 million. Telefilm invests $1.1 million, sogic puts up $450,000, and the National Film Board comes in later as a co-producer, investing $375,000. Cinepix handles foreign sales.

Leading players include Marianne-Coquelicot Mercier in her feature film debut as Camille, veteran tv and stage actor Denis Mercier as Marie-Pierre (nee Pierre-Henri), Toby Pelletier as Camille’s whimsical boyfriend Lucky, Sylvie Drapeau (Jamais deux sans toi) as her unhappy mother, Kim Yaroshevskaya (Manuel le fils emprunte, Home Fires), Luc Picard and Gilles Renaud.

Gendron works with Baillargeon and a large crew on the mainly nighttime set, while Marcotte deals with the funding agencies and prepares the post-production.

Shooting in the late fall is hazardous at best, and the director later reports that the shoot was ‘extremely difficult’. Low points include a discouraging scene that must be repeated on three occasions on the Concord bridge in sub-zero January conditions. On the positive side, luck shines on the production in early November when a snowstorm (called for in the script) hits town, ‘creating an aura of magic,’ says Marcotte.

Eric Cayla is the dop, Real Ouellette is the art director, Yves Laferriere writes the original music, Helene Girard is the editor, Richard Besse and Viateur Paiement are the sound recordists and Doris Girard is the NFB’s associate producer.

Winter 1993: The zero copy is readied at the nfb. Bellevue Pathe (AstralTech) prepares the release prints and Postproductions Buzz creates the film’s celestial digital special effects.

Aug. 26, 1993: Le Sexe des etoiles has its world premiere as the opening night film of the 17th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival. Close to 1,000 see the film at Place des Arts while another 400 attend a screening earlier the same morning. The film is entered in official competition at the WFF.

The movie’s Quebec press coverage is huge. Baillargeon makes the cover of two of Montreal’s cultural weeklies, doubles up with lengthy reports in back-to-back weekend spreads in La Presse, and appears on radio and TV.

September 1993: c/fp opens the film in theatres in the main Quebec urban centres with an estimated 13 prints.

Le Sexe des etoiles is screened in the Perspective Canada section of the Toronto Festival of Festivals.