MONTREAL — A filmmaker who has dedicated his craft to recording modern Quebec history and culture will be honored by his peers at next month’s Prix Jutra.

As the recipient of the Jutra-Hommage award for lifetime achievement, 69-year-old Jean-Claude Labrecque will join the ranks of Quebec film industry luminaries such as Gilles Carle, Rock Demers and Denise Filiatrault.

‘I’m very proud to receive this. It’s an honor. And it encourages me to keep working,’ Labrecque tells Playback Daily.

Throughout his career, Labrecque has documented important political events in the history of his province. He made one of the first films about Charles de Gaulle’s infamous visit to Quebec in 1967 where the French president shouted ‘Vivre le Québec libre’ to a cheering crowd. In 1977, he released a documentary on Montreal’s Olympic Games, Les Jeux de la XXIe Olympiade. More recently, he directed the controversial and popular documentary A hauteur d’homme, which follows PQ leader Bernard Landry during the last days of the 2003 election campaign.

‘We are a small nation. I think it’s important to document turning points in our history,’ says Labrecque. Reputed as a filmmaker with a great deal of humanity, Labrecque says he’s still friends with many of his documentary film subjects. ‘I still have contact with people I made films about 40 years ago,’ he says.

Labrecque’s other works include: L’histoire des trois (1989), about a group of students who in 1958 occupied Premier Maurice Duplessis’s office, as well as L’Aventure des Compagnons de Saint-Laurent (1995) and Anticosti — au temps des Menier (1999).

He is in the process of completing the historical documentary Infiniment Québec, which will be released this spring in time for the 400th anniversary of Quebec City. ‘This is my homage to the beauty of Quebec,’ says Labrecque.