Bio
Jean Marc Larivière was born and raised in Hawkesbury, in eastern Ontario. He lived in Toronto for about thirty years, where he studied at university in physics and mathematics. Having developed a taste for the performing arts in secondary school, he joined the St. Michael College university theatre troupe and staged three plays that were well received. Following this experience, he decided to devote his time to writing, music, theatre and film.
Toronto was a city of cultural discoveries and artistic fulfilment. A self-taught creator, he was introduced to the seventh art in the city’s many repertory cinemas. With his knowledge of directing and acting, he quickly became a sought-after collaborator with aspiring filmmakers at Ryerson University. This is how he learned the mechanics of filmmaking and the secrets of the director's craft, which led him to rub shoulders with the next generation of Toronto filmmakers such as Peter Metter, Patricia Rosema, Bruce MacDonald, Atom Egoyan, among others.
In 1982, with the help of a volunteer crew fresh out of Ryerson, he independently directed and produced révolutions, d'ébats amoureux, éperdus, douloureux (révolutions, at last, forever and ever). Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), this first feature-length drama made in French Ontario was noted by critics for its delicacy and visual purity. In the late 1980s, the film was one of twenty works selected by the Ontario Film Archive and presented at the Cinémathèque Française, in Paris.
Since then, he has directed a dozen films that have been screened in Canada, the United States and Europe. His latest feature film, Effractions, an adaptation of the novel La vraie vie by Acadian author France Daigle, was presented at the Festival international des films francophones en Acadie (FICFA). He is currently working on the post-production of hÔMme Movies, a modular work lasting several hours.