VANGUARD: DERRIÈRE MOI

Director/Writer/Editor: Rafaël Ouellet
Producers: Rafaël Ouellet, Stéphanie Morissette
Cast: Carina Caputo, Charlotte Legault, Éliane Gagnon, Patrice Dubois
Distribution & International Sales: Films Séville

Rafaël Ouellet’s $450,000 auteur film Derrière moi (Behind Me) explores the harsh reality of a prostitute who recruits a naive adolescent to take over her job. And the director says: ‘It’s a film about friendship and betrayal.’

Screening in the Vanguard section, Derrière moi marks the 34-year-old writer/director’s second bow at TIFF – his self-financed $5,000 feature Le cèdre penché (The Leaning Cedar), about two sisters mourning the loss of their mother, got good reviews in Toronto last year and won the Popular Choice Award at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal.

Once again, Ouellet is exploring the inner lives of young adults. In this film, Carina Caputo stars as Betty, the well-paid call girl whose pimp tells her she can leave the business if she finds a replacement within a week. Betty convinces 14-year-old country girl Lea (Charlotte Legault) to take over her job.

Ouellet wrote Derrière moi because he’s interested in how women are manipulated into becoming prostitutes.

‘Betty wants to save herself and will sacrifice another person to do it,’ says Ouellet, adding that his film is about emotions, not sex. ‘I didn’t want there to be graphic sex. I’m interested in what’s going on in their heads.’

Currently shooting his third feature, New Denmark, Ouellet says he’s drawn to stories about adolescents because, like a number of young Quebec directors, he learned elements of his craft making video clips at French-language music specialty channel MusiquePlus.

‘I worked at MusiquePlus for seven years,’ explains Ouellet. ‘I was responsible for trying to sell adolescents a lifestyle based on consuming the latest iPod and being like everyone else. But young people have so much curiosity and naiveté and idealism. With my films, I want to try to show them something else.’