Montreal: Andre Lafond, Montreal film commissioner from 1989 to the fall of 2002, passed away Oct. 22 of a brain tumor at the age of 59.

Lafond is widely credited with turning around Montreal’s service production industry, which bottomed out in 1992 when the city saw absolutely no U.S. production activity. Lafond visited Los Angeles on many occasions in efforts to convince influential producers like Louis Stroller, Bernie Williams, Eli Samaha and Don Carmody to shoot in Montreal. They did, and when he asked them to help sell the city, they did that, too.

In recent years, Montreal has played host to prominent international filmmakers such as Brian DePalma, Steven Spielberg, Richard Attenborough and Robert Benton and movie stars like Robert DeNiro, Gerard Depardieu, Philippe Noiret, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Travolta, Nicole Kidman, Nicholas Cage, Penelope Cruz, Halle Berry, George Clooney and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

In Lafond’s final year as film commissioner, foreign film and TV shoots had grown to $337 million in direct production investment.

He championed the city as a prime North American location, was willing to do battle, often alone, against what he perceived to be opportunistic greed or narrow sectorial interests. In the process he overcame many obstacles, including linguistic slurs, jurisdictional hassles with the provincial agency, and a notoriously underfunded promotions budget.

Lafond joined the National Film Board in 1972 and worked at the board’s Paris office for three years, later becoming an NFB regional director.

In more recent years, he was a keen promoter of new media and of innovative Montreal-based software manufacturers such as Discreet and Softimage.

He fell ill last fall and had emergency surgery, but when it became clear earlier this year that he would not return to his duties at city hall, Daniel Bissonnette replaced him as commissioner.

Lafond was considered a genuinely amiable man who loved his city and the industry that he served so well.