Director/screenwriter: Micheline Lanctot Producers: Rock Demers, Yves Rivard, Andre Gagnon Diary by: Leo Rice-Barker

1982: Director, actress and writer Micheline Lanctot (Deux Actrices, Sonatine, L’Homme a tout faire) considers writing a film script based in part on a reconstructed experience of her family and a German pow who worked on the family farm near Farnham, Que. during ww ii.

In the story, the handsome pow has an affair with the mother, and after many years pass, assumes the status of a mythological character in the minds of his ‘foster’ family. Nearly 50 years later, the old soldier returns to Quebec, but people and recollections have changed, and a confrontation is in the making.

Images scattered throughout 50 years appear and reappear in the film, but Lanctot says the transitional devices are not flashbacks in the normal cinematic sense, but something closer to the timeless movement of memory. She says La Vie is a highly narrative story about ‘the fragility of memory and the simple pleasure of storytelling.’

1983: Sonatine, Lanctot’s second film, wins the prestigious Silver Lion at Venice.

1985/86: Research and writing support is available through producer Louise Gendron of Studio C at the National Film Board. But Gendron leaves the board, and a few short months later, the nfb backs out of the project.

1987: Lanctot and dop Andre Gagnon decide to produce the film themselves. Lanctot receives screenwriting funds from sogic’s Prime a la continuite program, but Telefilm Canada tells her she’ll ‘have to find a `real’ producer, because she is a director.’

Late 1988: Producer Claudio Luca comes on board and Telefilm makes an investment in the film’s development. Divergent views surface and Luca pulls out.

1989: The project is brought to the attention of producer Rock Demers of Les Productions La Fete. Creative control remains with Lanctot but Telefilm wants veteran producer Demers to be given full creative and financial control. Meanwhile, Lanctot continues with the writing.

1990: More writing follows, as does the first attempt to get La Vie d’un heros into production. Preproduction begins and they start lining up cast, a precondition for a signed distribution agreement and access to Telefilm’s Feature Film Fund.

Telefilm greenlights the shoot, but sogic, the Quebec cultural funding and certification agency, says ‘No,’ as does the nfb, which makes the bureaucratic claim that the project was earlier developed at the board and therefore is not eligible for additional funding.

‘The project is back in limbo,’ says Lanctot.

Later in 1990: sogic delivers its second refusal as Demers and Lanctot apply intense pressure on the nfb and the board’s chairperson, Joan Pennefather.

Lanctot says she is ready to give up when Pennefather suggests they reapply. The nfb comes onside. They now have the backing of Telefilm and the nfb, but sogic says no for the third time.

Lanctot puts the film aside to shoot Deux Actrices, a $240,000 film supported with her own funds and a Canada Council grant. The film goes on to win the L.E. Ouimet Molson Award for the best Quebec feature film of 1990.

Meanwhile, Demers attempts to fill the financial hole with a European coproducer. The French are definitely not interested in a pow movie, while the Germans make it clear they aren’t doing any more Third Reich films.

Late 1992, early 1993: La Fete assumes formal control over the production and Francois Macerola of Malofilm Communication helps bring a distributor on-line. But Lanctot has to begin a fifth draft of the script when Demers announces the budget is being cut 20% – from $3.2 million to $2.5 million.

Summer 1993: Malofilm Distribution’s participation is formalized on the condition the film is ready for the 1994 Montreal World Film Festival. The funding agencies greenlight the project in August when preproduction begins for a second time, but Lanctot says it’s too late to find a German lead, despite the frantic casting efforts in Europe. The shoot is delayed to spring ’94 and the fall scenes are dropped. Lanctot directs a stage play ‘to forget it.’

January 1994: With a cut in budget of $700,000 and eight fewer shooting days, preproduction begins for the third time on Jan. 29.

March 8 to April 22, 1994: La Vie d’un heros shoots for 32 days on Super 16mm (later it’s blown up to 35mm) – 10 days in Montreal and 22 in the Eastern Townships.

After 15 Tales For All features under his belt, Lanctot’s film marks Demers’ first foray outside the family collection.

Demers says he is moved emotionally by the story. ‘The writing is exceptional, and this is a new approach to cinema in Quebec.’

La Vie d’un heros is produced by La Fete in association with the nfb. Funding sources include La Fete, more than $350,000; Stop Film’s, Lanctot’s company; the Quebec tax credit; Telefilm; and Malofilm Distribution, which advances minimum guarantees in the $350,000 range. Malofilm has Canadian and international rights.

During filming, the crew works 15-hour days, with extra long makeup sessions for leads Gilbert Sicotte and Veronique Le Flaguais who age 50 years during the course of the film.

Other leading players are Marie Cantin, Christopher B. Maccabe and Erwin Potitt. Craft credits go to cinematographer Thomas Vamos, art director Gauceline Sauriol, makeup artists Nicole Lapierre and Jocelyne Bellemare, line producer Lorraine Du Hamel, pm Alain Gagnon, nfb sound recordist Richard Besse and costume designer Christiane Tessier.

Lanctot says the reduced budget hasn’t affected the quality of the film but it did make for an exhausting shoot, with cuts to the number of scenes, art direction elements and extras. The film has fewer than 310 scenes and uses single setups, long shots and sweeps, again due to time limitations.

Early May: Creation Montage editor Gaetan Huot has the first cut ready. Lanctot says the digital edit is ‘fabulous’ but the low-resolution is not.

August 1994: La Vie d’un heros is entered into official competition at the Montreal World Film Festival.

Lanctot says she doesn’t like the idea of competition between films, but adds the wff showcase has promotional value. ‘Films are produced under varying circumstances. They aren’t equal to begin with,’ she says.

Demers, however, enjoyed the experience. ‘It’s my first film in the wff competition. I think it’s great.’

Lanctot also says some in the business consider her to be ‘too esoteric’ and she’s not sure the film represents a breakthrough in her career. ‘If the film doesn’t make money, I’ll be on the penalty bench again.’

Sept. 16-17, 1994: La Vie d’un heros has its English Canada premiere in the Perspective Canada section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Sept. 23, 1994: Three 35mm prints are launched in Quebec theatres by Malofilm Distribution.