Bio
My first significant act as an adult artist (though they are no doubt of great importance, I will spare you my childhood photos) was to head to Western Canada to seek out French-speaking communities and chronicle what had become of them. Armed with my FM2 and a hundred rolls of Tri-X, I spent long weeks creating portraits. The experience cemented my love for the particular kind of encounter created through the impulse to capture a subject on film. Upon my return, I was selected to compete in the TV show contest La Course Destination Monde, which took me on a six-month journey around the globe. Combining an insane production pace with total freedom and resulting in some 20 films, the Course was a real education in learning how to see. Bolstered by my win (for which I received the SODEC/Telefilm Canada award), in 2000 I made Un arbre avec un chapeau, a short film that screened at Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma and the Toronto International Film Festival. I then made L’ïle, a documentary about Henri Letendre, an elderly man exiled from his island by illness. I have directed numerous films and series, including Manifestes en série in collaboration with Hugo Latulippe. My feature-length film La reine malade (The Ailing Queen) took the RIDM Éco Caméra award in 2009 and the Gémeaux for best documentary in 2010. For Les Vaillants (The Undaunted), produced by Films de l’Autre, I was writer, director, producer and director of photography. At heart I’m a photographer who is passionate about the power of cinema. I love the moment when, during the shoot, the camera through its complicity amplifies each person’s existence — including my own.