Press Book - Wolf Consultants

A FILM BY
CAST
PRODUCTION
MUSIC
SCRIPT
KARL LEMIEUX
JEAN-SIMON LEDUC
MARTIN DUBREUIL
FRANCIS LA HAYE
MARIE BRASSARD
ROBIN AUBERT
SYLVAIN CORBEIL
NANCY GRANT
DAVID BRYANT
THIERRY AMAR
KEVIN DORIA
KARL LEMIEUX
MARIE-DOUCE
ST-JACQUES
GERMAIN PETITCLERC
SOUND
DIRECTOR
POST-PRODUCTION
SUPERVISION
KARL LEMIEUX
MÉLANIE GAUTHIER
STEPHEN DE OLIVEIRA
OLIVIER CALVERT
HANS LAITRES
CINEMATOGRAPHY
COSTUMES
MATHIEU LAVERDIÈRE
PATRICIA MCNEIL
EDITING
ART DIRECTION
MARC BOUCROT
LOUISA SCHABAS
LINE PRODUCTION
A FILM BY
KARL LEMIEUX
INTERNATIONAL SALES
PRODUCTION
PRESS
STRAY DOGS
Nathan Fischer
[email protected]
+33 6 59 94 12 84
METAFILMS
Sylvain Corbeil
[email protected]
+1 514 486 7646
WOLF CONSULTANTS
Michael Arnon
[email protected]
+49 178 547 0179
SYNOPSIS
Caught stealing drugs from the wrong
people, 27 year old Vincent is in trouble
and on the run from the local mob. Fleeing
to the backwoods, Vincent unexpectedly
reconnects with his brother Michel with
whom he’d cut ties many years ago. As
he tries to maintain the semblance of a
normal life hanging out with friends and
playing in his band, Vincent witnesses his
brother’s own turbulent downward spiral.
MAUDITE POUTINE draws us into a darkly
dystopian rural world, a place in which violence pervades the everyday but humanity
still manages to shine through the cracks.
BIO
Karl Lemieux is a fixture on Montreal’s
experimental film scene, constantly evolving sonic collaborations and new celluloid
based film works. His first narrative short
film Passage (2008) won the Best Music
Award at the 24th Hamburg International
Short Film Festival as well as the Jury
Grand Prize at Montreal’s Prend Ça Court
festival. Karl Lemieux’s films, installations,
and performances have been shown internationally in museums, galleries, music
venues and film festivals including: the
Montreal Contemporary Art Museum, the
MOMA Museum of Modern Art in San
Francisco, the Austrian Film Museum, and
Views from the Avant Garde, a program of
the New-York Film Festival. He is becoming more commonly known as the ninth
member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor,
a musical collective for whom he does
live 16mm film projections. His collaborations also include works with sound
artists such as Philip Jeck, BJ Nilsen
and Francisco Lopez. In 2012 he designed and directed the visual projections
for the The Black Keys’ El Camino Tour,
which won a Grammy Award for Best Rock
Performance of the Year. He also toured
as the supporting act for Nine Inch Nails’
Tension Tour in the fall of 2013. He is the
co-founder of Double Négatif, a Montrealbased collective dedicated to the production and dissemination of experimental
films. His last film Quiet Zone (2015) was
produced by the National Film Board of
Canada and presented in competition at
the Toronto International Film Festival and
the Rotterdam International Film Festival.
He currently has several projects in the
works, including an experimental short
film shot on 35mm about China’s infamous abandoned cities.
FILMO
MAUDITE POUTINE
PASSAGE
2016 — 16MM TO DCP — 95 MINUTES
2008 — 35MM — 15 MINUTES
QUIET ZONE
WESTERN SUNBURN
2015 — 35MM — 15 MINUTES
2007 — 16 MM TO VIDEO — 10 MINUTES
MAMORI
MOUVEMENT DE LUMIÈRE
2010 — 35MM — 10 MINUTES
2004 — 16 MM — 8 MINUTES
DIRECTOR’S
STATEMENT
Since the release of my initial short film, I have devoted myself to
conducting formal experiments which employ sensorial approaches
to portray images. For example, Mouvement de lumière (2004), an
abstract animated film featuring hand-painted lines accompanied by noise music, attempts to break away from the common
audiovisual structure in order to access our internal sensory
system. This constant challenge allows me to explore the subject
of ecstasy, focusing on the manners used in its portrayal.
Formally, I am interested in the relationship between image and
sound, using these vectors of film to develop a fresh and radical
posture. My interest is inspired by current research in the field
of experimental music, which is equally sensitive to underlying
texture levels. I am inspired by how film conveys physical feelings
which are not necessarily confined to psychological emotions
(although the viewer may very well experience dread, terror, joy,
panic, etc.). It is also my belief that subtle physical feelings can be
transmitted through sound, sequencing of images, and editing.
Although my short fiction film Passage (2008) can be distinguished from my other previous works, it maintained the focus of
my interests. I believe the power of fiction is its ability to transmit
unique physical experiences through a story. The story must consequently be captured, transposed onto film, and utilized to create
an experience. My utmost interest is this concept of experience –
the bodily, physical, human reactions sustained during a film.
As a result of further research on “sensorial cinema”, my current
project, Maudite Poutine, bears many resemblances to the ideas
put forward in Passage. For this piece, I wanted to include a heightened sense of carnality and eroticism. This erotic charge is essential to achieving the desired cohesion and structure. I enjoy using
this base intensity, the force which emanates from actors (professional or amateur), their bodies, their characters. Constructing
a cinematographic character using staging and editing is always
subject to the physical presence and the gestural prowess of
the actor.
One of the many interesting challenges inherent to this project was
the discovery of and collaboration with the actors. Professional or
amateur, the key was their ability to personify, literally, their characters. My initial criteria was to determine if they possessed what
Rodrigue Jean called “living poetry” or if they had “the past written
on their bodies’”. It was important for me to direct the actors, but
equally important to allow them the space required to evolve into
their character... and making sure the camera was close enough to
capture the intimacy of this transformation.
In Maudite Poutine it was imperative to stay at a close proximity to
the main character (Vincent) in order to accentuate his subjective
point of view and his visceral experience of the world. To attain
this effect, my choice was to film using a hand held camera and
the lightest equipment possible.
There is, evidently, no correct way to film an image. Something
traditionally considered as an error could eventually become the
key to defining a new form of communication. In the film, I purposefully use over-exposed, under-exposed, blurry, and backlit
shots. The use of 16mm film thickens the grain of the film to the
point where certain details are no longer decipherable. The work
of photographers Michael Acerman, Deborah Turbeville, and Sally
Mann is a constant inspiration to my work. They employ the aforementioned techniques to create beautiful and singular atmospheres out of originally simple spaces.
To think that a film has the possibility of being “perfect” is nonsensical and cliché. A “perfect” film can be defined as one that
lends itself to the dominant ideology, one that includes the
common images, symbols and references which are part of the
contemporary consensus regarding the representation of art
and society. A “perfect” film is what one expects to see, a product
with just enough uniqueness to give the impression that it arose
from critical thinking. It conforms itself to the token psychological,
sociological, and artistic criteria. To me, these “perfect” films are
devoid of interest.
INTERVIEW
WITH THE
DIRECTOR BY
RALPH ELAWANI
FOR VICE
Interview with Karl Lemieux and Marie-Douce St-Jacques.
On the menu: rural violence, sensationalistic cinema and the
Sonic Death album.
Did you film the entire movie in the same region?
Karl Lemieux: Everything was shot around Kingsey Falls, which
is also my hometown. Having access to the local resources was
a big plus, and we developed some great relationships in the process. Part of my family works in the Cascades factory, and I doubt
we would have had access if it wasn’t for that. I was talking to
the foreman and said “My dad used to work on that machine over
there, my brother works on this one right here... Do you think we
would be able to shoot inside here?”. When we arrived on the first
day of shooting, there was a buffet waiting for us.
You quoted Rodrigue Jean’s expression “the past written
on their bodies” to describe what you were looking for
while selecting the actors. To what extent did this affect
your final choices? Tell us more about the selection of
Martin Dubreuil.
Karl Lemieux: In narrative cinema, the actors’ talent makes or
breaks the movie. Martin is a larger than life personality. I always
envisaged him in the role of a metal-head, and it just so happened
that he had recently finished the HBO series Lewis & Clark. His
hair was long and he had a scruffy beard, which is not his usual
look. It was perfect timing.
Your method of scriptwriting as a duo is fascinating.
How do you make it work?
Marie-Douce St-Jacques: Karl had been talking about this
project for so long that it had practically become his full-time job.
When you work on a screenplay, it’s key to draw from your personal empirical experiences, but also to become a sort of alchemist
in order to enhance the storyline. We worked together every single
week for three years.
To what extent were you capable of understanding the
atmosphere that he wanted to create?
MDSJ: I’m from West Laval, which during my youth was the
toughest part of town. When I was a teenager, I chose to hang
with the music and arts crowd who listened to Crass and sniffed
gas, as opposed to the jocks or the preppies. It was my scene.
Actually, there is a spot in the movie when Jean-Simon ransacks
his apartment, and Karl had asked me to work on that scene. I had
no difficulty picturing such a spectacle because I had witnessed
someone lose their mind and destroy their apartment in the exact
same way.
CAST
JEAN-SIMON LEDUC AS VINCENT
MARTIN DUBREUIL AS MICHEL
FRANCIS LA HAYE AS IAN
ROBIN AUBERT AS DARKIE
MARIE BRASSARD AS FRANCINE
ALEXA-JEANNE DUBÉ AS DOMINIQUE
CREW
PRODUCTION
In what ways had you witnessed violence and cruelty in
a rural setting?
KL: It’s weird. I know that worse things happen in Montreal, but
we never seem to hear about them, and I’ve been living here for
fifteen years. Rural communities are much smaller, there are fewer
people, and the people know each other better. There is also a
lot of boredom, and fewer ways to make a living. My village was
pretty industrialized and the majority of the people worked at the
factory. There were not a lot of options for people who weren’t
interested by that lifestyle. Some people ended up getting lured
into small crimes for the money or getting involved in organized
crime. I knew a lot of people who went down that path, although I
myself rarely saw what was happening. However, I definitely heard
the stories of who had gotten into what. It was enough to leave a
lasting impression.
SYLVAIN CORBEIL
NANCY GRANT
SCRIPT
MARIE-DOUCE ST-JACQUES
KARL LEMIEUX
CINEMATOGRAPHY
MATHIEU LAVERDIÈRE
ART DIRECTION
LOUISA SCHABAS
What did you do with your free time in Kingsey Falls?
COSTUMES
KL: My saving grace was skateboarding, although it still kept me
close to some pretty marginal people. I discovered the film club
at Victoriaville College and eventually was hitch-hiking to Montreal
to watch movies at the Parallel Cinema. It was a time when the
punk scene and noise music had a huge influence on things out
in the country, especially bands like Sonic Youth. THE tape that
everyone in my small town had was Sonic Death. I’ve always
found that album to have something special, something beautiful.
It was like people could rise above all the day to day crap and
attain a sort of higher spiritual place because of that music.
PATRICIA MCNEIL
How did you choose the music for the film?
SOUND
KL: David Bryant, Kevin Doria and Thierry Amar composed the
original soundtrack. A lot of “local” bands also contributed: Akitsa,
Hyena Hive, Steve Bates and Elizabeth Anka Vajagic (who is seen
in concert in the film). Other groups also participated, such as
Lustmord, Wolf Eyes, Sibelius and several others as well. I was
genuinely surprised by everybody’s willingness to cooperate.
Montreal is buzzing with talented people; it’s really amazing to
see. It’s like a collective ritual that never seems to end...
LINE PRODUCTION
GERMAIN PETITCLERC
POST-PRODUCTION SUPERVISION
MÉLANIE GAUTHIER
EDITING
MARC BOUCROT
STEPHEN DE OLIVEIRA
OLIVIER CALVERT
HANS LEITRES
MUSIC
DAVID BRYANT
THIERRY AMAR
VKEVIN DORIA
CANADA – 2016 – 91 MIN – 1,85 :1 – 5.1 - FRENCH
Crédit d’impôt pour production
cinématographique ou
magnétoscopique canadienne