MONTREAL — Veteran producer Roger Frappier gets emotional when he talks about Dédé à travers les brumes, his portrait of Dédé Fortin, an iconic figure in Quebec rock music who ended his own life in 2000.

The $7.8-million film was six years in the making because both the producers and writer/director Jean-Philippe Duval wanted to get it right. ‘I was very touched by Dédé’s music when he was alive. I think he’s a great poet,’ Frappier, recently inducted into the Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame, tells Playback Daily. ‘He was such a prominent figure in Quebec culture. He mixed poetry with the idea of Quebec independence. I think when he died a part of us all died.’

Andre ‘Dédé’ Fortin was the lead singer of the wildly popular Les Colocs (‘the roommates’) rock band, which formed in 1990 and dominated the Quebec music scene in the 1990s. Viewed by many as the spokesman for a generation, Fortin was a passionate believer in Quebec sovereignty and campaigned for the ‘Oui’ side in the 1995 Quebec referendum. In 2000, he was found dead in his apartment, the result of a self-inflicted knife wound. He was 38.

While Fortin’s suicide is part of the story, the filmmakers wanted to focus on the musician’s life rather than his death, says Frappier. To keep the story as true-to-life as possible, Duval interviewed Fortin’s girlfriends, fellow band members and family while working on the script.

The film’s drama centers on the recording of the album viewed as the band’s best, 1998’s Dehors Novembre (‘November outside’). The recording sessions, which took place in a house in rural Quebec, are inter-cut with flashbacks and flash-forwards to key moments in Fortin’s life.

On June 3, about 400 extras were at the downtown Montreal club Metropolis for a scene recreating a legendary Colocs show at the Spectrum that paid tribute to their harmonica player Patrick Esposito Di Napoli, who had died of AIDS.

‘Doing the Spectrum scene was very emotional, and it comes through in the rushes. I think people will have the sense they are watching Dédé. I want them to have that pleasure again,’ says Frappier.

Frappier says the most challenging thing about making the film was convincing Sébastien Ricard to take on the role. A popular film and TV actor who is also the founding member of the hip-hop band Loco Locass, Ricard wasn’t initially interested in the role. Since then he’s recorded a full album of Colocs songs that likely will be released before the film. ‘We couldn’t imagine the film without Sébastien,’ says Frappier. ‘And we were right. He’s inside the character. He’s found the spirit of Dédé.’

Produced by Frappier and Luc Vandal of Max Films and Zone3’s Michel Bissonnette, André Larin and Vincent Leduc, the film was made with support from both SODEC and Telefilm Canada. TVA Films will release Dédé à travers les brumes in March 2009.