A talented roster of filmmakers are up for this year’s Best Director Genie. Alain DesRochers helmed La Bouteille, Denis Villeneuve directed multiple nominee Maelstrom, Robert Favreau was behind Les Muses Orphelines while Robert Lepage brought his vision to Possible Worlds and Gary Burns took us waydowntown. Their stories follow.

*Alain DesRochers

La Bouteille

If the Genie comes out of the bottle for La Bouteille director Alain DesRochers, his vindication will just add to his drive to convince Canadian moviegoers to change their ways.

Nominated for direction in this debut feature, DesRochers is frustrated by the dispiriting Canadian cycle of good press/bad box office that afflicts so many domestic films, certainly not just first efforts. After La Bouteille drew poorly over a few weeks on screens across Quebec, DesRochers is bracing himself for the tough slog facing Canadian filmmakers trying to get bums in seats in Canadian cinemas.

‘It’s discouraging. Even here in Quebec, the French people are going to English films dubbed into French more than French films made here,’ he says, emphasizing that box office winners such as the Les Boys franchise are big exceptions.

An award-winning director of commercials and, formerly, videoclips, DesRochers says good press on La Bouteille has buoyed him and he’s satisfied it was worthwhile to spend four years making this film. ‘I did that movie to talk to people. Even if I didn’t have great box office, everyone who saw it seems to be very positive.’

In his Oct. 21 review in La Presse, Marc-Andre Lussier gives La Bouteille three stars out of five, and writes that although DesRochers has not created a masterpiece, his characters make bittersweet reflection on the relative importance of material success. Lussier, who welcomes a second DesRochers feature (he’s at work on an actioner), notes the film demonstrates more nuance than is usual in popular Quebec comedies.

But DesRochers describes his film as a dramatic comedy based on his own experience of writing down his dreams with a friend, burying them in a bottle and returning to try to recover them 10 years later. In the movie, the two men who search for the bottle have little friendship left as one is tacky rich, the other poor. The pair are outmaneuvered in a comic scenario in which at least one thinks money can buy all.

With this film, DesRochers is living out the last dream he buried in that bottle – of directing feature films. He didn’t get his debut finished by age 30 as he’d hoped, but says it doesn’t matter because it’s the doing that matters, not the timing.

DesRochers cowrote the script with Benoit Guichard. Susan Tolusso

*Denis Villeneuve

Maelstrom

Director Denis Villeneuve has a great movie-making partnership. Max Films’ Roger Frappier, the producer of his first feature, the 1998 release Un 32 aout sur terre, approached the Montreal director with an offer to helm a second one. The result is Maelstrom and a best direction nomination at the 2001 Genie Awards.

The $3.4-million film, a dark portrait of a hit-and-run artist, was born of an idea Villeneuve had ‘to make a portrait of this character.’ Villeneuve, also nominated for his writing on the project, felt the pressure of his sophomore directing venture.

‘At the beginning, Roger [Frappier] put a lot of pressure on me to make a second film as quickly as possible’ despite the fact that ‘when you are making your second feature it is very dangerous to be under the pressure of the critics and everyone else’s point of view.’ This pressure, says Villeneuve, caused many of his friends and fellow directors to wait ‘five, six, seven or eight years after their first [film]’ to begin a second project.

‘So Roger was saying to me, ‘Just make a second film. Don’t think about making a good film. Just do a second one, and after that we’re going to make a third one.’ ‘

Villeneuve, who calls the direction on the project ‘very instinctive and about exploring and experimentation with cinema,’ says he ‘tried to keep that kind of spontaneity with the film crew and a kind of improvisation about the mise en scene – a more ‘jazz’ feeling with the camera.’

Still in ‘a learning process,’ Villeneuve finds it difficult to participate in the marketing of his pictures after they are complete. ‘After I finish a film, I am very critical about my work. I’m not a very good marketer [of my own films]. They should put me far away [from the completed project],’ the director laughs.

Despite his self-criticism, Villeneuve knows Maelstrom is ‘the best thing [he’s] made in [his] life so far.’

Certainly, the product is a reflection of the effort Villeneuve and the production team invested in the project. Turns out, the editing on the picture was completed in full – twice.

‘I was too exhausted and the [first] editor was very good, but we tried to go too far away from the script and it didn’t go well. And after several weeks, Roger [Frappier] said, ‘You’re not happy, start again.’ And we did start again – from zero, with another editor. That’s what I like about Roger Frappier. His goal is to make a good film. The rest is not important. The main thing is the film,’ says Villeneuve.

The director is pleased with the reception his film (distributed by Alliance Atlantis/Vivafilm) received at the Toronto and Montreal festivals. ‘I wanted to make a film that was a bit disturbing and would provoke reaction – and I’m very happy with that.’ Dave Lazar

*Robert Favreau

Les Muses Orphelines

For Quebec feature producer Lyla Films, it didn’t take much thought to select the director for its latest flick, Les Muses Orphelines. Turns out, Robert Favreau ‘came with the project.’ With the director nominated at the 2001 Genies, taking on the movie turned out to be a good thing for the Montreal prodco.

Based on a stage play by Michel Marc Bouchard, Les Muses follows the lives of a family of ‘strange orphans’ after being abandoned by their mother. When the youngest orphan calls an ‘impromptu family reunion,’ she convinces her siblings that their mother is coming home. The film captures the gathering and all the personal, emotional and passionate conflicts that result.

With Favreau vacationing in the desert and unavailable for comment, producer Lyse Lafontaine discusses the work that earned its director a Genie nomination. According to Lafontaine, Favreau is ‘very, very pleased with the project.’

‘We wanted to open up the play to give some life to the village – and we did that in the screenplay and Robert did that also,’ she says. Apparently there were other changes Favreau brought to the original stage concept. ‘We decided after discussions with Robert to lower the age of the characters. So they’re all between 25 and 35 [in the screen version].’

Above all, Lafontaine believes Favreau’s true genius lies in the way he works with actors. ‘It’s a film that rests on actors,’ she says. ‘They had workshops for three weeks to a month, just Robert and the four actors. So they had long rehearsals, actually. That’s [Favreau’s] way of working. And I think it’s his greatest strength, actually.’

The shoot, which ‘ran smoothly,’ took place in and around Montreal, including two weeks ‘out in the bushes’ of Lac-St.-Jean. It was scouted and planned well ahead of time. In fact, Favreau, Lafontaine, playwright Bouchard and screenwriter Gilles Desjardins went to Lac-St.-Jean ‘before [they] started adapting the play.’

Favreau, who has been directing various film and television projects since 1972, has never before been nominated for a Genie. Les Muses, which scored a total of four nominations, opened at the Rouyn-Noranda International Film Festival in Quebec at the end of October. Distribution is being handled by Montreal’s Film Tonic.

According to Lafontaine, Favreau is ‘pretty happy’ with the way the picture has been received. ‘We got great reviews,’ she says. Currently, Favreau and Lyla Films are at the writing stage of other projects in development. Dave Lazar

*Robert Lepage

Possible Worlds

Robert Lepage’s feature film Possible Worlds pushes the bounds of the imagination, looking at reality from a surrealist perspective. Now, Lepage’s own broad imagination and unique outlook have translated into a best director nomination at the 2001 Genie Awards.

Although Lepage was unavailable for comment, his producer Sandra Cunningham believes the film’s theme reflects the outlook of its director. The theme, as the film’s main character George Barber explains, is the concept that ‘each of us exists in a number of possible worlds.’ The film goes on to follow the character, whose murdered corpse is discovered by two police detectives. As a spree of similar killings continues, George leads the audience through several alternate realities in search of his lover, Joyce.

The film, based on John Mighton’s Governor General’s Award-winning play of the same name, got its start when Lepage first saw the play at a theatre festival in Quebec City. When the Montreal director showed an interest in helming the film version, playwright Mighton and producer Cunningham knew he would be right for the project.

Cunningham explains how the hiring of Lepage was the catalyst behind the assembly of a ‘fabulous crew. People love working with Robert Lepage, so it was not difficult to convince people to come on board,’ she says.

Shot on the Magdalen Islands and in Montreal, Possible Worlds premiered at the Venice International Film Festival before screening as a ‘special presentation’ at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Lepage has previously been nominated for his writing on features No at the 1998 Genies and Le Polygraphe, which also earned him a best director nomination at the ’96 Genie Awards. A year earlier, he took home a best director statue and the Claude Jutra Award for direction of a first feature for his film Le Confessionnal. Dave Lazar

*Gary Burns

waydowntown

Reaction to Genie-nominated director Gary Burns’ work on waydowntown has been overwhelming, including from the filmmaker himself, who says the final product surpassed even his vision.

‘Oh, I’m very happy with [the film]. Ideas evolve and change, and as you cast it, it’s a different movie. Of all my films it’s the one I’m most happy with. It looks a lot better than I thought it would, but that’s the only surprise.

‘We shot digital and some 35mm and cut the original 35mm negative into the blowup negative. The blowup was so good, it was subtler than we anticipated. You never know how it’s going to go over, but I was more confident than I’ve ever been that [waydowntown] was going to go over.’

And the picture has certainly gone over well.

‘The audience response was really great; we couldn’t have gotten any better. You never know until people see it how it’s going to be received. We’ve had good critical response as well – it’s been uniformly great. And it’s a really small movie – it was made for under $1million, but the Toronto Star and National Post both gave it four stars and The Globe and Mail gave it 3.5 stars – no one gets 3.5 stars from The Globe and Mail. It’s certainly opened doors – if your film opens well it’s always easier to do the next one.’

The film, which opened at the Toronto International Film Festival, was the result of a year’s work. And Burns has not let the grass grow under his feet: right now he is working on a new project, with a writing partner for the first time.

The project, which he also plans to direct, is not easily described. ‘It’s pretty weird. I haven’t even worked out how to phrase it in one sentence. It’s about fears coming true, but they’re banal fears based on one guy’s fears, and he’s got an anxiety disorder.’

Odeon Films is distributing. Fiona MacDonald