Montreal: L’Association des Realisateurs et Realisatrices du Quebec, representing French-language directors in film and TV, has awarded its 2003 Prix Lumiere career contribution award to Fernand Dansereau.

A former financial and labor reporter with Le Tribune and Le Devoir, Dansereau, 75, has worked as a producer, director, editor and writer of documentaries, feature films and dramatic TV series over the past five decades.

He joined the National Film Board in 1955, ultimately becoming head of French production.

His filmography includes Bernard Devlin’s award-winning film Alfred J. (1956) and one of the very first feature-length films made at the NFB, the 1963 documentary Pour la suite du monde (Moontrap), directed by Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault. He directed the feature film Les Festin des morts (1965); produced the TV doc series Temps Present (1961/62); directed the short film La Cannes a peche (1959), based on the Anne Hebert story; wrote the TV movie Les Mains nettes (1958), directed by Claude Jutra; and wrote, directed and edited the dramatic short Ce n’es pas le temps des romans.

Dansereau moved to the private sector in 1968. He scripted, directed and co-edited the feature doc Faut aller parmi le monde pour le savoir, selected for the Directors Fortnight at Cannes in 1972, and by the early 1980s was working almost exclusively as a screenwriter of primetime dramatic TV series, including Parc des Braves, Les Filles de Caleb (a BTVF winner in 1991) and the historical drama Shehaweh (1991/92). In 2001, he wrote and directed the feature-length environmental doc Quelques raisons d’esperer, profiling ecologist and philospher Pierre Dansereau, produced by Eric Michel of the NFB.

Dansereau received the Prix Lumiere at a May 7 ceremony at the Cinematheque Quebecoise honoring pioneering TV directors, including Frederic Back, Paul Blouin, Louis-Georges Carrier, Pierre Desroches, Fernand Dore, Charles Dumas, Jean-Paul Fugere, Pierre Gauvreau, Rolland Guay, Maurice Leroux, Fernand Quirion and Gilles Senecal, as well as filmmakers Gilles Carle and Michel Brault.