Montreal: Veteran Quebec documentary filmmaker Richard Boutet, in his early 60s, died suddenly of a heart attack Friday, Aug. 29, only days before his latest film Sexe de rue premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival.

Throughout his career Boutet remained faithful to the social activism school of documentaries of the 1970s, concerned with the dispossessed and victimized.

Boutet’s filmography includes Survivants de l’Apocalypse (1998), about the victims of religious sects and a Hot Docs! nominee in 1999; Le Chemin brut (1995), on the role of art as therapy in treating mental disorders; Le Spasme de vivre (1991), on youth suicide; La Guerre oublie (1988), a feature-length ‘popular opera’ on the horrors of WWI and the 1988 Prix Alberta-Quebec winner for innovation; and La turlutte des annes dures (1983), a musical doc on the Depression Era and double-prize winner at the Nyon festival in Switzerland and winner of the Prix Ouimet-Molson for best Quebec film.

Sexe de rue deals with the most vulnerable street prostitutes of Montreal’s Red Light district.

Friends and colleagues of Boutet, including the people he worked with at Vent d’Est Films and 7e Art Distribution, celebrated his life and work at a memorial service.