With five feature films under his belt, this past summer Maxime Giroux moved into the saddle of his English language debut (2014’s Félix et Meira works in multiple spoken dialogues) with In Cold Light. Lassoing the likes of Maika Monroe, Troy Kotsur and Helen Hunt, this crime thriller could easily wait until the autumn film festival circuit, but if they move quickly then this would be a return to Park City for Giroux who last premiered his 2005 short “Le Rouge au Sol”. Sara Mishara is the cinematographer here.
Gist: Ava (Monroe) is trapped. Like a bull in a bucking chute, seconds before exploding onto the rodeo stage.…...
Gist: Ava (Monroe) is trapped. Like a bull in a bucking chute, seconds before exploding onto the rodeo stage.…...
- 11/13/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
The TIFF Platform comp title, official selection for Canada for Best International Feature Film category and sophomore feature by Ivan Grbovic was crowned Best Film at the Gala Québec Cinéma ceremony last night. Drunken Birds (aka Les oiseaux ivres) picked up a total of ten Iris awards including top categories Best Director, Best Screenplay (co-written with cinematographer Sara Mishara) , Best Actress (Hélène Florent), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Legault) and Best Cinematographer also went to Mishara who would end up competing against herself with Maxime Giroux’s Norbourg also getting a nom in that category.
Florent was the first actress in the event’s history to double down and win two awards – she also nabbed Best Supporting Actress for her part in Sébastien Pilote’s Maria Chapdelaine — that film also won Best Newcomer award for Sara Montpetit who was recently featured in Cannes in Falcon Lake — a film that will surely...
Florent was the first actress in the event’s history to double down and win two awards – she also nabbed Best Supporting Actress for her part in Sébastien Pilote’s Maria Chapdelaine — that film also won Best Newcomer award for Sara Montpetit who was recently featured in Cannes in Falcon Lake — a film that will surely...
- 6/6/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
The inaugural season of CBC and HBO Max series “Sort Of” leads both the television and overall 2022 Canadian Screen Award nominations with 13 nods. CBC’s “Pretty Hard Cases” and CTV Sci-Fi Channel’s “Wynonna Earp” with 11 each, and CBC’s “Coroner” and “Kim’s Convenience” with 10 each are the other leading television nominees.
The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television revealed on Tuesday 145 nominations across television, film and digital media categories. In film, Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson’s “Scarborough” and Danis Goulet’s “Night Raiders” top the nominations with 11 each, while Michael McGowan’s “All My Puny Sorrows” has eight and Bretten Hannam’s “Wildhood” and Ivan Grbovic’s “Drunken Birds” six each.
“21 Black Futures” and “For the Record” lead the digital media nominations with eight each, followed by “The Communist’s Daughter” with six.
Beth Janson, CEO, Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, said: “We are so fortunate to...
The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television revealed on Tuesday 145 nominations across television, film and digital media categories. In film, Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson’s “Scarborough” and Danis Goulet’s “Night Raiders” top the nominations with 11 each, while Michael McGowan’s “All My Puny Sorrows” has eight and Bretten Hannam’s “Wildhood” and Ivan Grbovic’s “Drunken Birds” six each.
“21 Black Futures” and “For the Record” lead the digital media nominations with eight each, followed by “The Communist’s Daughter” with six.
Beth Janson, CEO, Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, said: “We are so fortunate to...
- 2/15/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Filmed with an international cast speaking French, English and Spanish, and co-written with cinematographer Sara Mishara, Ivan Grbovic’s Drunken Birds begins in urban, crime-infested Mexico and swiftly transports us to the rural farmlands of Quebec, where former drug runner Willy has come in search of a former lover is in hiding from her mobster partner. Willy’s journey brings him into the orbit of farm owner Richard, who is dealing with an unfaithful wife and a rebellious daughter—a dangerous combination.
Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event, Grbovic explained that the idea for the film first came to him in 2005. “I was driving back to Montreal from a shoot in the countryside,” he recalled, “and I stumbled across a little village in the fog. And to my surprise, I saw about a hundred Mexican migrant workers waiting outside the bank in the fog. I didn’t...
Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event, Grbovic explained that the idea for the film first came to him in 2005. “I was driving back to Montreal from a shoot in the countryside,” he recalled, “and I stumbled across a little village in the fog. And to my surprise, I saw about a hundred Mexican migrant workers waiting outside the bank in the fog. I didn’t...
- 11/20/2021
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
In a fairly crowded field of contenders, “Drunken Birds” just grabbed the nod as Canada’s best international feature submission to the Oscars. The reasons why are almost immediately apparent on seeing Montreal-born Ivan Grbovic’s sophomore effort, co-written with cinematographer Sara Mishara. Though more modest in length and scale (not to mention star wattage),
Admittedly, that bold, confident surface sits on a framework of rather basic melodrama it can’t entirely disguise. But moment to moment, “Birds” is an impressive leap from the director’s debut, “Romeo Eleven,” a decade ago, signaling another French-Canadian talent perhaps ready to follow Denis Villeneuve and Jean-Marc Vallée onto a bigger career stage. Les Films Opale released the TIFF-premiered film to Canadian cinemas last month.
An initially baffling series of seemingly unrelated scenes — including a white tiger prowling a drug lord’s abandoned estate — gradually settle into the present-tense arrival of Willy (Jorge Antonio Guerrero...
Admittedly, that bold, confident surface sits on a framework of rather basic melodrama it can’t entirely disguise. But moment to moment, “Birds” is an impressive leap from the director’s debut, “Romeo Eleven,” a decade ago, signaling another French-Canadian talent perhaps ready to follow Denis Villeneuve and Jean-Marc Vallée onto a bigger career stage. Les Films Opale released the TIFF-premiered film to Canadian cinemas last month.
An initially baffling series of seemingly unrelated scenes — including a white tiger prowling a drug lord’s abandoned estate — gradually settle into the present-tense arrival of Willy (Jorge Antonio Guerrero...
- 11/16/2021
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
Drunken Birds, the migrant drama from Serbian Canadian director Ivan Grbovic that had its world premiere in the Platform section at last month’s Toronto Film Festival, has been selected by Canada as the country’s entry into the 2022 International Feature Oscar race.
Written by Grbovic and Sara Mishara, the film (Les oiseaux ivres in French) centers on a quest for lost love that sends a man from Mexico to Canada, where he is hired as a seasonal worker. Fates intertwine, tensions grow, and moments of magical realism arise during the long workdays. Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Hélène Florent, Claude Legault, Marine Johnson, Maxime Dumontier, Amaryllis Tremblay, Karl Walcott, Yoshira Escárrega, Gilberto Barraza and Normand D’Amour star.
The film is produced by micro_scope and distributed by Les Films Opale. Wazabi Films is repping international sales. Drunken Birds was one of 10 films submitted to the pan-Canadian Oscar selection committee, Telefilm Canada said Monday.
Written by Grbovic and Sara Mishara, the film (Les oiseaux ivres in French) centers on a quest for lost love that sends a man from Mexico to Canada, where he is hired as a seasonal worker. Fates intertwine, tensions grow, and moments of magical realism arise during the long workdays. Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Hélène Florent, Claude Legault, Marine Johnson, Maxime Dumontier, Amaryllis Tremblay, Karl Walcott, Yoshira Escárrega, Gilberto Barraza and Normand D’Amour star.
The film is produced by micro_scope and distributed by Les Films Opale. Wazabi Films is repping international sales. Drunken Birds was one of 10 films submitted to the pan-Canadian Oscar selection committee, Telefilm Canada said Monday.
- 10/4/2021
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
Ivan Grbovic’s Drunken Bird (Les Oiseaux Ivres) will represent Canada in the best international feature film category as its official Oscar submission.
Telefilm Canada executive director and CEO Christa Dickenson said on Monday (October 4) that 10 films had been submitted to the pan-Canadian selection committee, adding: “Telefilm will support the film’s team on this exciting journey. This vote of confidence is a phenomenal springboard for these creators and a terrific opportunity for Canada to demonstrate the excellence of its film industry.”
‘Drunken Birds’: Toronto Review
Grbovic and Sara Mishara co-wrote the film produced by micro_scope. It premiered...
Telefilm Canada executive director and CEO Christa Dickenson said on Monday (October 4) that 10 films had been submitted to the pan-Canadian selection committee, adding: “Telefilm will support the film’s team on this exciting journey. This vote of confidence is a phenomenal springboard for these creators and a terrific opportunity for Canada to demonstrate the excellence of its film industry.”
‘Drunken Birds’: Toronto Review
Grbovic and Sara Mishara co-wrote the film produced by micro_scope. It premiered...
- 10/4/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
We start at the end—the end of a cartel. Men climb the walls to go inside the now abandoned estate, walking amongst paintings and sculptures before stripping naked to take a dip in the indoor swimming pool while a giant portrait of their unwitting (and now imprisoned) benefactor looks on. One decides to don a fur coat as he rifles through the papers sitting on the kingpin’s desk. He picks up a note and begins to read before discarding it out of boredom. The voice of its author, however, continues to speak. Talk of a shootout, love, and emancipation follow until the smooth swoop of a tarp covering an expensive car transports us back to the moment the letter was composed within. The present provides the past.
Writer/director Ivan Grbovic and co-writer/cinematographer Sara Mishara seamlessly take us back and forth through time so the romance at...
Writer/director Ivan Grbovic and co-writer/cinematographer Sara Mishara seamlessly take us back and forth through time so the romance at...
- 9/19/2021
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
With a full year of creative pauses and improvisational workflow behind them, Canadian producers hit the 2021 Toronto festival bullish that in-person screenings and heightened fall fest excitement will focus critics and sales buzz to connect their films with audiences beyond their home turf.
Luc Dery and Kim McCraw of Montreal’s micro_scope, who introduced Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” and Philippe Falardeau’s “Monsieur Lazhar” to North American audiences at TIFF, return with Ivan Grbovic’s “Drunken Birds” (pictured), one of eight titles screening in Platform, the festival’s juried competition program.
Jorge Antonio Guerrero (“Roma”) stars as a Mexican drug-cartel worker who falls in love with his boss’s wife and whose pursuit of her lands him in rural Quebec, where he gets mixed up in his host family’s troubles. The film is exec produced by Nicolas Celis (“Roma”), with Wazabi Films selling.
“The marketplace is quite brutal right now,...
Luc Dery and Kim McCraw of Montreal’s micro_scope, who introduced Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” and Philippe Falardeau’s “Monsieur Lazhar” to North American audiences at TIFF, return with Ivan Grbovic’s “Drunken Birds” (pictured), one of eight titles screening in Platform, the festival’s juried competition program.
Jorge Antonio Guerrero (“Roma”) stars as a Mexican drug-cartel worker who falls in love with his boss’s wife and whose pursuit of her lands him in rural Quebec, where he gets mixed up in his host family’s troubles. The film is exec produced by Nicolas Celis (“Roma”), with Wazabi Films selling.
“The marketplace is quite brutal right now,...
- 9/10/2021
- by Jennie Punter
- Variety Film + TV
Sigourney Weaver praised the team behind Philippe Falardeau’s “My Salinger Year,” which opens the 70th Berlin Film Festival Thursday night, calling the film “a big step forward” for women in an entertainment industry still reckoning with the impact of the #MeToo movement.
“Our producers Kim (McCraw) and Luc (Déry) went out of their way to hire women who might not have been heads of department, who carried the load for a long time, made them heads of department, and gave them that chance,” Weaver said at a press conference on Thursday. “Boy, did they do a hell of a job.”
Based on Joanna Rakoff’s international bestseller set in the literary world of 1990s New York, “My Salinger Year” is a coming-of-age story about a young woman, Joanna (Margaret Qualley), who leaves graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming a writer and gets hired as an assistant to...
“Our producers Kim (McCraw) and Luc (Déry) went out of their way to hire women who might not have been heads of department, who carried the load for a long time, made them heads of department, and gave them that chance,” Weaver said at a press conference on Thursday. “Boy, did they do a hell of a job.”
Based on Joanna Rakoff’s international bestseller set in the literary world of 1990s New York, “My Salinger Year” is a coming-of-age story about a young woman, Joanna (Margaret Qualley), who leaves graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming a writer and gets hired as an assistant to...
- 2/20/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
My Salinger Year
Quebec’s Philippe Falardeau will unleash his highest profile project to date next year with My Salinger Year, an adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s 2014 memoir. Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley headline, while Douglas Booth, Colm Feore and Théodore Pellerin are among the supporting cast members. Lensed by Sara Mishara (of Maxime Giroux’s Felix & Meira and The Great Darkened Days), the project was produced by micro_scope’s Luc Dery and Kim McCraw with Ruth Coady and Susan Mullen. Falardeau’s breakout was 2011’s Monsieur Lazhar, which premiered in Locarno and went on to nab an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.…...
Quebec’s Philippe Falardeau will unleash his highest profile project to date next year with My Salinger Year, an adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s 2014 memoir. Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley headline, while Douglas Booth, Colm Feore and Théodore Pellerin are among the supporting cast members. Lensed by Sara Mishara (of Maxime Giroux’s Felix & Meira and The Great Darkened Days), the project was produced by micro_scope’s Luc Dery and Kim McCraw with Ruth Coady and Susan Mullen. Falardeau’s breakout was 2011’s Monsieur Lazhar, which premiered in Locarno and went on to nab an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.…...
- 1/3/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Memento Films Intl. has inked a raft of strong pre-sales on Philippe Falardeau’s “My Salinger Year,” the big-screen adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s international bestseller that will star Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”).
Set to start shooting May 23, “My Salinger Year” has pre-sold to Spain (A Contracorriente), Latin America (Cinepolis), the U.K. (Thunderbird), Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Japan (Ccc), Portugal (Outsider), Greece and Cyprus (Spentzos), Bulgaria (Btv Media Group), the former Yugoslavia (Dexin), Hungary (Hungaricom), China (Huanxi Media), South Korea (Jin Jin Pictures), Taiwan (Catchplay), the Middle East (Falcon Film) and global airlines (Entertainment in Motion).
Falardeau, whose credits include the Oscar-nominated film “Monsieur Lazhar,” wrote the big-screen adaptation of the memoir and will direct the film. “My Salinger Year” takes place in New York in the 1990s and follows Joanna (Qualley), who leaves graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming...
Set to start shooting May 23, “My Salinger Year” has pre-sold to Spain (A Contracorriente), Latin America (Cinepolis), the U.K. (Thunderbird), Benelux (Paradiso Filmed Entertainment), Japan (Ccc), Portugal (Outsider), Greece and Cyprus (Spentzos), Bulgaria (Btv Media Group), the former Yugoslavia (Dexin), Hungary (Hungaricom), China (Huanxi Media), South Korea (Jin Jin Pictures), Taiwan (Catchplay), the Middle East (Falcon Film) and global airlines (Entertainment in Motion).
Falardeau, whose credits include the Oscar-nominated film “Monsieur Lazhar,” wrote the big-screen adaptation of the memoir and will direct the film. “My Salinger Year” takes place in New York in the 1990s and follows Joanna (Qualley), who leaves graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming...
- 5/16/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Winners of the 2017 Whistler Film Festival were announced at the Awards Celebration this morning on the final day of the 17th annual Festival. Ian Lagarde’s first feature All You Can Eat Buddha and Jason and Carlos Sanchez’s A Worthy Companion tied for the $15,000 cash prize presented by the Directors Guild of Canada, British Columbia and the $15,000 post-production prize sponsored by Encore Vancouver in the 14th edition of the coveted Borsos Competition for Best Canadian Feature Film. The jury states “each in their own way convey unique visions and creative storytelling the jury believes have made and will make powerful contributions to the world of cinema.”A Worthy Companion
A Worthy Companion takes a fresh and new perspective that explores the complexity and humanity within the predator, victim relationship. This film questions how we perpetuate manipulative power dynamics between adult and child through the inner struggle of our female protagonists.
A Worthy Companion takes a fresh and new perspective that explores the complexity and humanity within the predator, victim relationship. This film questions how we perpetuate manipulative power dynamics between adult and child through the inner struggle of our female protagonists.
- 12/5/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
"Felix and Meira " is Canada's Official Submission in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards. Isa: Udi. U.S. Distributor: Oscilloscope Laboratories
United by spatial closeness yet separated by an ocean of cultural distance, the two doomed lovers in Maxime Giroux‘s “Felix and Meira” embody a romance caught between the clutches of strict religious mandates and the refreshing air of freedom. Sumptuously intimate and permeated with seductive melancholy, Giroux film follows a secular French Canadian man and a married Hasidic woman as they find comfort, even if temporary, from the quiet turmoil in their lives.
Read More: Review: 'Felix and Meira' is a Delicate Portrait of a Uniquely Forbidden Romance
Felix (Martin Dubreuil) is no longer a young man, but his life is far from being stable. His lack of interest in following his father’s footsteps has turned him into an outcast in our success-driven society. Bound to exist under the shadow of the Hasidic community’s expectations, Meira’s only respite from her duties as a wife are music and her occasional walks around the neighborhood. Once Felix and Meira (Hadas Yaron) cross paths and their tender desperation to be someone else takes over them, her husband, Shulem (Luzer Twersky), becomes the collateral victim. Is it Shulem’s fault that Meira feels trapped? Or are they both victims of the only lifestyle they’ve ever known? Is Felix offering an escape or destroying a family? It’s in the intricate search for these answers that Giroux finds moments of human truth for all the affected parts in this emotional triangle.
Read More: Whistler Film Festival 2015 Unveils First 18 Films Plus Other Highlights
Giroux is not a Jewish man and knew nothing about this community and their faith prior to the making of the film, but living in a community where the secular and the religious shared space but never connected inspired him to dive into the unknown. Though he was fearful of the risk he was taking, the result is elegantly executed and unassumingly affecting. He proves that melodrama rarely has a place where there is truth.
Here is our conversation with Giroux on understanding the Hasidic community he only knew from afar before, on the identity Quebecois people, and why he enjoys making films about things he is against.
Aguilar: Both Felix and Meira's world's coexist without ever touching each other. What prompted you to delve into these parallel lifestyles, in particular that of the Hasidic community, which is foreign to most of us?
Maxime Giroux: I have to say I was a little like Felix, the character. I was a bit naïve about the Hasidic community. I didn’t know anything about it and I was living, like him, in the same neighborhood as the Hasidic people. I don’t know why, but for some reason I wasn’t really interested in them. My community and their community live together, but we don’t talk to them and they don’t talk to us. At one point I was searching for an idea to make a movie. I was outside this cafe everyday and they would walk by in front of me. I talked to my co-writer Alexandre Laferrière and said, “Why don’t we make a film about this community? We don’t know anything about them. We should do research and try to learn more about them. We should try to be in contact with them.”
It was as simple as that. The reason why I made this movie was to get to know them a little bit more. I was naïve because I didn’t know it would be so complex to write a movie about them. The movie is simple in a way. It’s a simple love story or a normal love story, but it was tough to write it because there were things we couldn’t say and there were other things we could say but only in a certain way. We had to be careful. Our goal was to say a lot of things about this community but when we wrote it, I realized that it was too much and that we couldn’t show it all in the movie. It was really difficult. It took like two and a half years to write the script, to rewrite it, and to figure it all out.
What sort of research did you do or what kind of interaction did you have with this community in order to portray them accurately or in an honest manner? You are not part of the community, so in a sense, like Felix, you were an outsider looking at them from afar.
Maxime Giroux: That was the main complexity of making the film. Alex was more into the books. He was reading books about the Hassidic community and Judaism. We are not Jewish, so we were starting to learn from the beginning. We knew nothing. We started to write the script and while he was more into the books, I was more on the field. I was riding my bicycle, walking the neighborhood, going into synagogues and community centers, and talking to them. I discovered that every time I started to talk about how I was going to make a movie about their community they stop talking about the subject of the film. They said, “No, you can’t make a movie about that. Forget about it.” Some people among them were curious and asked me, “What’s your story about?” I would say, “It’s a love story between a French Canadian man and a Hasidic woman. ” They would say, “That’s impossible.” I would asked them, “Why do you say it’s impossible I’ve heard stories?” They would always reply, “No, it’s impossible.” At one point I thought, “Oh my God, it’s going to be impossible for me to make this movie because I need some of these people to help me make it. I can’t do it myself. I don’t know this community.” The only way for me to make the movie was to talk to people who have left the Hasidic community.
How difficult was it to find them and how willing were they to help you tell this story?
Maxime Giroux: I found Luzer, who plays Meira’s husband Shulem, on the Internet. I also found other ex-Hasidic people who lived in New York. I went there to talk to a lot of people who had left the community and all of them told me to go see Luzer. I already knew that I wanted to meet him because I thought he was the best prospect for the role, but everybody in New York confirm it and said, “You should go see this guy, he is amazing and he wants to act in movies.” I met him and he was such a character in real life and then I decided to work with him. He helped us translate the script into Yiddish. It was super important for me to make the film in Yiddish. He also helped us be accurate in terms of the set decorations, the props, and the costumes. He really helped us. Without him it would have been impossible to make the movie.
In the film there are also four other ex-members of the Hasidic community. All of them really helped me. A few months before making the film I thought, “I’m not going to make this film. It’s impossible. I don’t have the key to make this film even if I have the script,” but when I met these people they really helped us. That’s why I think that the ex-Hasidic people who saw the film really liked it because they feel it’s accurate. Just yesterday a guy from the U.K, an ex-member of the community, wrote to me because the film played in London a few days ago. He saw it and said, “Oh my God. It’s like my life.”
When you talked to them what were some of the reasons they gave you for leaving the Hasidic community?
Maxime Giroux: There are a lot of reasons. Just like in every community bad things happen. For example, I heard stories that in Brooklyn there have been cases of boys being sexually abused by adults in the community. Some people want to leave the community because of that. Others just don’t accept this way of living and others just don’t believe in religion. They were born into it but then at 8 or 9-years-old they start asking questions and by 14 they want to quit. There are a lot of different reasons depending on the person.
In your film Meira wants to leave because she wants freedom and she is loves, or at least is interested in Felix. Tell me about writing this beautifully complex character. She a woman living a double life.
Maxime Giroux: For me the main thing is that she wants freedom. We discovered that when you are a Hasidic woman you are first a child and then at 12-years-old instantly you become a woman. At 12-years-old they tell you, “Ok, now you have to learn to be a woman in order to become a mother.” They don’t have teenage years. For me, Meira wants to have those teenage years. She never had them but she wants to live them. She wants that freedom when you have when are teenager and you start to listen to music and to define yourself with art. She wants those years where you find a path for yourself. I think she wants freedom. Is she really in love with Felix? He is there and she is perfect for him. I think love in life is like that most of the time. We fall in love with someone that’s at the same place and the same moment of his or her life. You need that person so you can grow for a certain period of time. Sometimes this growth is for 10, 20 or 30 years, and sometimes it’s only for a few months. So is she really in love with him? Maybe.
The ending is also very ambiguous. It doesn’t give us a straight answer or a perfectly wrapped happy ending. There is uncertainty in both of their faces.
Maxime Giroux: Yes, it was very important for a lot of reasons. Even us, in our society, when we leave someone, like if you have two children and a wife or a husband, we are not sure about doing it. After a few months you might think, “Did I do the right thing? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe my life with my wife and children was wonderful but I fucked it up." There was also the fact that when Hassidic people leave the community they don’t have family anymore, they don’t have friends anymore, they don’t have education anymore.
Are they sort of like the stories we hear about people who leave Scientology or cults?
Maxime Giroux: I don’t know much about scientology, but at least some of those people have something before that and they have an education. Hasidic people don’t have an education, some of them barely speak English. When they leave their community they arrive in this society like if they were an immigrant from another country without a job, without money, without friends, and without family. They have nothing. There is a high suicide rate among them because you can’t quit religion in one day. That’s why the ending of the film is like that. Religion was so strong for 20-something years in Meira's life, so when you try to quit everything you feel lost and you feel alone even if there is someone there. She doesn’t really know Felix and he doesn’t know her. It’s going to be a new life for him too. He will have to take care of her and of a child that he doesn’t know. In turn, Meira's daughter will never see her father again, even if he was a good guy and love both of them. It was impossible for me to write a happy ending.
Through small details we see that when Meira is with Felix, outside of her real life her self-image change. The beauty that she’s been hiding comes out and there is a certain glow about her. She rediscovers herself when she is outside of her religious world.
Maxime Giroux: Yes. Something like this happened to me. I was with a woman for years. She was always a beautiful woman, but when she left me everyone was telling her, “You look great!” It's not that I was a bad guy to her, but we were not happy together at the end of the relationship. Once someone leaves a relationship where he or she feels trapped, there is like a new light about that person. That’s what freedom gives you. Hadas Yaron was perfect for this role. She doesn’t have to say anything. It’s all in her eyes and the way she moves. When she puts jeans on for the first time it’s an incredible moment.
Those moments, which we take for granted and consider mundane, are revelatory experiences for her.
Maxime Giroux: When we wrote the scene with the jeans we didn’t really know what it meant. We wrote it thinking, “Probably for her, since she has never had the chance to wear pants in her life, this will mean something.” Jeans are a symbol of freedom. In the 1950s young people would wear casual jeans as a “fuck you” to their parents. Still today they represent something casual and free. For most Hasidic people, men or women, the first time they put jeans on is one of their most memorable experiences. The first time they wear them is like, “Oh my God, what’s happening!” It’s something they’ve never experienced. Something so tight on their skin. It’s a pretty sensual sensation. We discovered what it meant after we did the film. Hasidic people who watched the film would say, “The scene with the jeans is perfect.” Those are great little details, but without a good actress it would have been impossible.
Tell me about your decision to cast Hadas Yaron. This is a challenging role in terms of the languages spoken and the delicate vulnerability required to play a woman divided between two lives.
Maxime Giroux: As you know she was in film called “Fill the Void,” which is also about the Hasidic community, because of that I didn’t want her in my movie at first. I said, “She already acted in a movie about the Hasidic community, and she doesn’t speak Yiddish or French.” I started doing research here in the U.S. to find an actress. I found a few Hasidic women but they were two tall for my two actors who are short and thin. I didn't really find someone that was good. Then my two producers, who are also Xavier Dolan's producers, without my permission, asked her to audition. I saw the video in my computer and she was speaking French and 15 seconds after I thought, "That's Meira. That's totally her." She is very different from her role in "Fill the Void" where she is more reserved. I said, "Yes she is Meira but she needs to learn Yiddish and French," and she did. She was really good.
Speaking about language, although there is dialogue in the film, this is a very quiet story. Silences and gazes are really powerful between the protagonists.
Maxime Giroux: I think that really represents who I am. Even if I talk a lot with you right now, I'm not a really intellectual person. I'm more introspective. My world is more inside of me. I think this comes from my culture, from the Quebecois culture. We are really instinctive people. We don’t talk much. We are not like French people from France who talk and talk and who are really intellectual when they speak. I think this is one of the reasons why my characters not talk a lot. It’s more about little actions and little details. That’s because of who I am. In a way I see myself in Meira too, even if I didn’t live that life. When I was young I was a little bit like her in way. I was trying to get out of the community I grew up in, which was uneducated and where there was no art. Even if I loved those people I wanted to have more than. I see myself in Meira maybe more than in Felix. I think Felix is more like my co-writer.
Felix is going through his own problems after his father's death. He is a mess. He acts like a young man who hasn’t figured himself out. I feel that's what makes him connect with Meira, the fact that he is also, despite his age, still discovering who he wants to be.
Maxime Giroux: He represents a lot of people I know, but I also think he represents my society, the French Canadian society, which is getting older. We are a new country like the U.S. We are a young country unlike France or Germany. In those terms French-Canadian society is really like a teenager in a way. We are a little bit lost. In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s we decided to remove everything religious. Before that we were a very religious society, but not anymore. We lost our sense of family and community. I think in that sense Felix really represents my community. These are two communities that are living together. One is really about community and family values and the other one is like, “I don’t give a shit about my father, mother or my neighbor.” It’s a bit like in America too. We care about ourselves: the individual. It was really important for us two have these two communities. He is lost in this community because we have to perform. To be a good citizen in our society you need to be successful and make money, and he doesn’t want to do that. His father did that and he was not happy. Felix is more like, “I don’t give a shit about being that.” He doesn’t want to be part of the system and she is not part of the system either.
Does he love Meira?
Maxime Giroux: I think he loves her more than she loves him, but she loves him too in a way too.
Do you think this sense of isolation in your film also comes from the idea that Quebec and French Canadians are an island within Canada?
Maxime Giroux: Yes. Right now we are a little bit lost in terms of who we are. In the 70s and 80s we were like, “Yes, we are French-Canadian! Quebecois!" We were proud of it. Now we are more like, “Yes, we are French-Canadian but at the same we want to make money and we want the same things as other Canadians. We don’t give a shit about who are. We just want to make money. “
Something that really makes the film emotionally poignant is that you don’t make Shulem, Meira’s husband, a villain. He is a man who loves his wife and child but who has chosen to live by the parameters of his faith.
Maxime Giroux: That was incredibly important. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in religion, but at the same time the goal of the film was to try to understand people who need religion. I didn’t understand them before making this movie. There are so many people who believe in and who need religion. It was important for me to represent them, which is why Meira's husband is very important. We had to see his humanity, not only the religion behind him but also the human. Most humans on this planet are good people. Most of them. I don’t have a number, but everywhere I've traveled most people are good. When you spend time with people you see most of them are good. Society or religion sometimes makes them bad.
In life, I hate police. In Montreal whenever there is a student protest I’m always on the student’s side, not the police. But I know that there are good people in the police force. That’s why I want to make a movie about police at some point, because I don’t like them and I want to like them a little bit more. I want to say to myself at the end of the journey, “You were wrong. There are some fucking good people in the police.”
Is there a reason why you don’t like police?
Maxime Giroux: I don’t like people with that kind of power. I feel like they are often on a power trip. Not all of them, but in my head I generalize them, just like I did with religion. After making “Felix and Meira” I understood that some people need religion and others simply don’t.
It’s very interesting and admirable that you make films about things you don’t understand in order to understand them better.
Maxime Giroux: Not only that I don’t understand, but that at the beginning of the process I’m against. I know that at the end I’ll change my ideas and that's the reason why I’m making a film on the subject. I want to understand those people and I want to prove to myself that humans and life are more complex and more beautiful than I thought.
Shulem is just doing what his religion mandates. It's definitely his choice, but we know that he doesn't have may options.
Maxime Giroux: He is also a victim. It was important for me to show that in the movie even if it’s subtle. Religion can be good, but in this case the problem is that if you don’t act like you are supposed to in that community people will slap your hand. They tell Meira, “You have to be like this. You have to have children and you have to take care of your children.” That’s the bad thing about this religion, and I wanted to show that. This guy is a victim of that because if the community would give women more space and freedom, he would still be with her. He would still be the father of that child and the husband to that woman.
Regarding the film's cinematography, what kind of references or specific styles did you discuss with your Dp? There is a classic, almost tender quality to the images.
Maxime Giroux: I've worked with Sara Mishara, the director of photography, before. I started working with her in university. We don’t have to talk a lot, but the few things we said to ourselves before starting the movie was that we wanted it to look a little bit like the immigrant movies of the 70s. Not “The Godfather” but all those movies about immigrants that took place in Brooklyn. For me Meira is an immigrant living in North America in a sense. We wanted the 70ish look or Gordon Willis-ish. I had the chance to visit some Hasidic households in Brooklyn and Montreal and all of the colors felt like if I was in the 70s. The color palette was really toned down and there were not bright colors. There might be bright colors sometimes in their clothing but not in the house. We decided to get some lenses that are not very good to avoid having a perfectly sharp image. We decided to make a very simple movie in terms of how we were going to shoot it and let the characters talk. We weren’t trying to do too much. We wanted to be humble like the characters and the subject. At the same we didn’t have a big budget, which I think was good for us because Sara didn’t really have the chance to light the scenes so we were playing with the sun and the available light. I think it gives the film a special quality.
The scenes in New York City, particularly those in Time Square, are incredibly beautiful and intimate. You found a very intimate moment between these two people in a crowded place full of lights.
Maxime Giroux: I thought the scene we shot in Time Square could turn out to be really cheesy, but it didn't. We didn’t have a lot of references for that scene, but I found a screen test that Natalie Wood and James Dean did for a movie. In that test they were doing what Felix and Meira do in the film. I don't know why, but I just did the same scene but in Time Square. I decided not to actually show Time Square but let the lights fall on them. We are in their bubble. It's funny because we had the camera but no lights, nobody saw or noticed us shooting there. The camera wasn't too big or high and there were so many people there that nobody thought we were shooting a movie. You can feel it in the scene, that they are in their bubble and the lights are just falling on them. For Meira, the character, this is special. Most Hasidic people in New York or Brooklyn have never gone to Time Square. They don't know what's there. For her is like, "Wow! There is also things like this out in the world," when for us it might like, "It's only Time Square." I think you can feel that for her it's not only Time Square, it's something more. It's something open, a big world has opened for her. I really like that scene and the music on it too.
Now that you mention music, that's one of the things Meira enjoys the most and that is also prohibited. She enjoys these classic pop songs but is not allowed to listen to them.
Maxime Giroux: Yes. She can't listen to that kind of music. Like I said, for me, and I think also for most people, music defines you or shapes you when you are young, especially when you are on your teens. That's why people still listen to U2 at 40-years-old, because when they discovered who they were that music was there. At 40-years-old you still the same person, you'll probably stay the same person all your life, and you still listen to U2. I don't understand that but that's how it is. She defined herself and found herself with this music, which is music by Black American singers from a particular time period. They were probably not slaves, but their mothers were slaves, they might feel like they are also slaves in a different way and they decide to take the fucking guitar and play music in a rebellious way.
Why did you decide to include that particular clip of this Black woman playing the guitar? It's also placed mostly without context within the narrative, a bold decision on your part because it break the cinematic grammar we are used to.
Maxime Giroux: That's the reason. For me this woman took this guitar in a man's world and said, "Fuck you! I'm gonna play the guitar and I'm gonna do whatever I want." That's what Meira wants, to do whatever she wants. At the beginning I was not supposed to put it in the movie but I decided to bring my computer on the set and I said to my Dp, Sara, "Can you film this clip on YouTube?" I started the clip and she started to shoot. Then the entire crew gathered around the computer saying, "Oh my God, what's that? It's so great" I knew it was great, and everyone was amazed by this woman, so I said, "I have to put this in the movie." I didn't know where, but during the editing process I needed a transition. I placed somewhere where you feel like something happened at that moment even if you don't see it. I thought, "Ok, I'm not supposed to do that as a filmmaker. It's a transgression, but I don't give shit. I just love this scene. I'm going to put it in and I know that some people will ask me why and I understand, but most people will like it. They will enjoy watching this big black woman emancipate herself by taking this guitar." Is the same idea during the scene at the Hispanic bar. This woman is dancing and she says to Meira, "Come dance with us." It was important for me that some women embraced Meira.
"Felix and Meira" is a great film, but it's a small. Did the positive reactions around the world surprise you? It did very well in the U.S. for a film its size.
Maxime Giroux: For sure. You are always surprised when you have success. It's not a huge success, but is still a success. The film cost nearly half a million dollars, so we were very surprised. At the same time I knew that the subject was interesting. Every time someone asked me, "What's your next movie?" I would say, "We'll it's a love story between a French Canadian man and a Hasidic woman who is married and has a daughter." Everyone was like, "Oh that's interesting." I knew that before shooting the movie but I was really afraid. I'm not Jewish, and it's difficult to make a movie about this subject. Telefilm Canada gave me money, but the Quebec government didn't give me money. They said, "How can you talk about them? You are not a Jew." I was really afraid and I knew that I had to be careful, but I also knew that people were interested in this story - even if it's a classic story. Also, when you put music like that in the movie you know that people will be easily touched. In cinema you can put a song like that and a plate of fruit on the screen and people will be touched. Let's be honest. Music is the easiest way to manipulate the audience in a movie. The director has to manipulate the audience in a good way, but music is the easiest way to manipulate the audience. You put a David Bowie song and people from that era will be touched because they will remember, "Oh that was the song that I liked when I was 16."
Now that "Felix and Meira" is traveling on its own two feet and is out there in the world, what are you working on next? Another small character study perhaps or something bigger?
Maxime Giroux: My next project will involve music. I was a drummer before and I did a lot of music videos. For my first film I refused to use music because I thought it was too easy. On "Felix and Meira" I said, "Fuck it, I'm doing whatever I want. I'm doing it for me." But the next one is about a female singer who is not very famous but everywhere around the world some people know about her. Sort of like Grimes, she can walk down the street and most people wont recognize her, but everywhere in the world some people do know her. The character is French Canadian but she sings in English. She has some money problems and to solve this problems she is going to do a concert in China with a cover band at a hotel. However, the real reason why she is doing it is to do some industrial spying in China
"Felix and Meira" is now available on DVD and on digital platforms.
United by spatial closeness yet separated by an ocean of cultural distance, the two doomed lovers in Maxime Giroux‘s “Felix and Meira” embody a romance caught between the clutches of strict religious mandates and the refreshing air of freedom. Sumptuously intimate and permeated with seductive melancholy, Giroux film follows a secular French Canadian man and a married Hasidic woman as they find comfort, even if temporary, from the quiet turmoil in their lives.
Read More: Review: 'Felix and Meira' is a Delicate Portrait of a Uniquely Forbidden Romance
Felix (Martin Dubreuil) is no longer a young man, but his life is far from being stable. His lack of interest in following his father’s footsteps has turned him into an outcast in our success-driven society. Bound to exist under the shadow of the Hasidic community’s expectations, Meira’s only respite from her duties as a wife are music and her occasional walks around the neighborhood. Once Felix and Meira (Hadas Yaron) cross paths and their tender desperation to be someone else takes over them, her husband, Shulem (Luzer Twersky), becomes the collateral victim. Is it Shulem’s fault that Meira feels trapped? Or are they both victims of the only lifestyle they’ve ever known? Is Felix offering an escape or destroying a family? It’s in the intricate search for these answers that Giroux finds moments of human truth for all the affected parts in this emotional triangle.
Read More: Whistler Film Festival 2015 Unveils First 18 Films Plus Other Highlights
Giroux is not a Jewish man and knew nothing about this community and their faith prior to the making of the film, but living in a community where the secular and the religious shared space but never connected inspired him to dive into the unknown. Though he was fearful of the risk he was taking, the result is elegantly executed and unassumingly affecting. He proves that melodrama rarely has a place where there is truth.
Here is our conversation with Giroux on understanding the Hasidic community he only knew from afar before, on the identity Quebecois people, and why he enjoys making films about things he is against.
Aguilar: Both Felix and Meira's world's coexist without ever touching each other. What prompted you to delve into these parallel lifestyles, in particular that of the Hasidic community, which is foreign to most of us?
Maxime Giroux: I have to say I was a little like Felix, the character. I was a bit naïve about the Hasidic community. I didn’t know anything about it and I was living, like him, in the same neighborhood as the Hasidic people. I don’t know why, but for some reason I wasn’t really interested in them. My community and their community live together, but we don’t talk to them and they don’t talk to us. At one point I was searching for an idea to make a movie. I was outside this cafe everyday and they would walk by in front of me. I talked to my co-writer Alexandre Laferrière and said, “Why don’t we make a film about this community? We don’t know anything about them. We should do research and try to learn more about them. We should try to be in contact with them.”
It was as simple as that. The reason why I made this movie was to get to know them a little bit more. I was naïve because I didn’t know it would be so complex to write a movie about them. The movie is simple in a way. It’s a simple love story or a normal love story, but it was tough to write it because there were things we couldn’t say and there were other things we could say but only in a certain way. We had to be careful. Our goal was to say a lot of things about this community but when we wrote it, I realized that it was too much and that we couldn’t show it all in the movie. It was really difficult. It took like two and a half years to write the script, to rewrite it, and to figure it all out.
What sort of research did you do or what kind of interaction did you have with this community in order to portray them accurately or in an honest manner? You are not part of the community, so in a sense, like Felix, you were an outsider looking at them from afar.
Maxime Giroux: That was the main complexity of making the film. Alex was more into the books. He was reading books about the Hassidic community and Judaism. We are not Jewish, so we were starting to learn from the beginning. We knew nothing. We started to write the script and while he was more into the books, I was more on the field. I was riding my bicycle, walking the neighborhood, going into synagogues and community centers, and talking to them. I discovered that every time I started to talk about how I was going to make a movie about their community they stop talking about the subject of the film. They said, “No, you can’t make a movie about that. Forget about it.” Some people among them were curious and asked me, “What’s your story about?” I would say, “It’s a love story between a French Canadian man and a Hasidic woman. ” They would say, “That’s impossible.” I would asked them, “Why do you say it’s impossible I’ve heard stories?” They would always reply, “No, it’s impossible.” At one point I thought, “Oh my God, it’s going to be impossible for me to make this movie because I need some of these people to help me make it. I can’t do it myself. I don’t know this community.” The only way for me to make the movie was to talk to people who have left the Hasidic community.
How difficult was it to find them and how willing were they to help you tell this story?
Maxime Giroux: I found Luzer, who plays Meira’s husband Shulem, on the Internet. I also found other ex-Hasidic people who lived in New York. I went there to talk to a lot of people who had left the community and all of them told me to go see Luzer. I already knew that I wanted to meet him because I thought he was the best prospect for the role, but everybody in New York confirm it and said, “You should go see this guy, he is amazing and he wants to act in movies.” I met him and he was such a character in real life and then I decided to work with him. He helped us translate the script into Yiddish. It was super important for me to make the film in Yiddish. He also helped us be accurate in terms of the set decorations, the props, and the costumes. He really helped us. Without him it would have been impossible to make the movie.
In the film there are also four other ex-members of the Hasidic community. All of them really helped me. A few months before making the film I thought, “I’m not going to make this film. It’s impossible. I don’t have the key to make this film even if I have the script,” but when I met these people they really helped us. That’s why I think that the ex-Hasidic people who saw the film really liked it because they feel it’s accurate. Just yesterday a guy from the U.K, an ex-member of the community, wrote to me because the film played in London a few days ago. He saw it and said, “Oh my God. It’s like my life.”
When you talked to them what were some of the reasons they gave you for leaving the Hasidic community?
Maxime Giroux: There are a lot of reasons. Just like in every community bad things happen. For example, I heard stories that in Brooklyn there have been cases of boys being sexually abused by adults in the community. Some people want to leave the community because of that. Others just don’t accept this way of living and others just don’t believe in religion. They were born into it but then at 8 or 9-years-old they start asking questions and by 14 they want to quit. There are a lot of different reasons depending on the person.
In your film Meira wants to leave because she wants freedom and she is loves, or at least is interested in Felix. Tell me about writing this beautifully complex character. She a woman living a double life.
Maxime Giroux: For me the main thing is that she wants freedom. We discovered that when you are a Hasidic woman you are first a child and then at 12-years-old instantly you become a woman. At 12-years-old they tell you, “Ok, now you have to learn to be a woman in order to become a mother.” They don’t have teenage years. For me, Meira wants to have those teenage years. She never had them but she wants to live them. She wants that freedom when you have when are teenager and you start to listen to music and to define yourself with art. She wants those years where you find a path for yourself. I think she wants freedom. Is she really in love with Felix? He is there and she is perfect for him. I think love in life is like that most of the time. We fall in love with someone that’s at the same place and the same moment of his or her life. You need that person so you can grow for a certain period of time. Sometimes this growth is for 10, 20 or 30 years, and sometimes it’s only for a few months. So is she really in love with him? Maybe.
The ending is also very ambiguous. It doesn’t give us a straight answer or a perfectly wrapped happy ending. There is uncertainty in both of their faces.
Maxime Giroux: Yes, it was very important for a lot of reasons. Even us, in our society, when we leave someone, like if you have two children and a wife or a husband, we are not sure about doing it. After a few months you might think, “Did I do the right thing? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe my life with my wife and children was wonderful but I fucked it up." There was also the fact that when Hassidic people leave the community they don’t have family anymore, they don’t have friends anymore, they don’t have education anymore.
Are they sort of like the stories we hear about people who leave Scientology or cults?
Maxime Giroux: I don’t know much about scientology, but at least some of those people have something before that and they have an education. Hasidic people don’t have an education, some of them barely speak English. When they leave their community they arrive in this society like if they were an immigrant from another country without a job, without money, without friends, and without family. They have nothing. There is a high suicide rate among them because you can’t quit religion in one day. That’s why the ending of the film is like that. Religion was so strong for 20-something years in Meira's life, so when you try to quit everything you feel lost and you feel alone even if there is someone there. She doesn’t really know Felix and he doesn’t know her. It’s going to be a new life for him too. He will have to take care of her and of a child that he doesn’t know. In turn, Meira's daughter will never see her father again, even if he was a good guy and love both of them. It was impossible for me to write a happy ending.
Through small details we see that when Meira is with Felix, outside of her real life her self-image change. The beauty that she’s been hiding comes out and there is a certain glow about her. She rediscovers herself when she is outside of her religious world.
Maxime Giroux: Yes. Something like this happened to me. I was with a woman for years. She was always a beautiful woman, but when she left me everyone was telling her, “You look great!” It's not that I was a bad guy to her, but we were not happy together at the end of the relationship. Once someone leaves a relationship where he or she feels trapped, there is like a new light about that person. That’s what freedom gives you. Hadas Yaron was perfect for this role. She doesn’t have to say anything. It’s all in her eyes and the way she moves. When she puts jeans on for the first time it’s an incredible moment.
Those moments, which we take for granted and consider mundane, are revelatory experiences for her.
Maxime Giroux: When we wrote the scene with the jeans we didn’t really know what it meant. We wrote it thinking, “Probably for her, since she has never had the chance to wear pants in her life, this will mean something.” Jeans are a symbol of freedom. In the 1950s young people would wear casual jeans as a “fuck you” to their parents. Still today they represent something casual and free. For most Hasidic people, men or women, the first time they put jeans on is one of their most memorable experiences. The first time they wear them is like, “Oh my God, what’s happening!” It’s something they’ve never experienced. Something so tight on their skin. It’s a pretty sensual sensation. We discovered what it meant after we did the film. Hasidic people who watched the film would say, “The scene with the jeans is perfect.” Those are great little details, but without a good actress it would have been impossible.
Tell me about your decision to cast Hadas Yaron. This is a challenging role in terms of the languages spoken and the delicate vulnerability required to play a woman divided between two lives.
Maxime Giroux: As you know she was in film called “Fill the Void,” which is also about the Hasidic community, because of that I didn’t want her in my movie at first. I said, “She already acted in a movie about the Hasidic community, and she doesn’t speak Yiddish or French.” I started doing research here in the U.S. to find an actress. I found a few Hasidic women but they were two tall for my two actors who are short and thin. I didn't really find someone that was good. Then my two producers, who are also Xavier Dolan's producers, without my permission, asked her to audition. I saw the video in my computer and she was speaking French and 15 seconds after I thought, "That's Meira. That's totally her." She is very different from her role in "Fill the Void" where she is more reserved. I said, "Yes she is Meira but she needs to learn Yiddish and French," and she did. She was really good.
Speaking about language, although there is dialogue in the film, this is a very quiet story. Silences and gazes are really powerful between the protagonists.
Maxime Giroux: I think that really represents who I am. Even if I talk a lot with you right now, I'm not a really intellectual person. I'm more introspective. My world is more inside of me. I think this comes from my culture, from the Quebecois culture. We are really instinctive people. We don’t talk much. We are not like French people from France who talk and talk and who are really intellectual when they speak. I think this is one of the reasons why my characters not talk a lot. It’s more about little actions and little details. That’s because of who I am. In a way I see myself in Meira too, even if I didn’t live that life. When I was young I was a little bit like her in way. I was trying to get out of the community I grew up in, which was uneducated and where there was no art. Even if I loved those people I wanted to have more than. I see myself in Meira maybe more than in Felix. I think Felix is more like my co-writer.
Felix is going through his own problems after his father's death. He is a mess. He acts like a young man who hasn’t figured himself out. I feel that's what makes him connect with Meira, the fact that he is also, despite his age, still discovering who he wants to be.
Maxime Giroux: He represents a lot of people I know, but I also think he represents my society, the French Canadian society, which is getting older. We are a new country like the U.S. We are a young country unlike France or Germany. In those terms French-Canadian society is really like a teenager in a way. We are a little bit lost. In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s we decided to remove everything religious. Before that we were a very religious society, but not anymore. We lost our sense of family and community. I think in that sense Felix really represents my community. These are two communities that are living together. One is really about community and family values and the other one is like, “I don’t give a shit about my father, mother or my neighbor.” It’s a bit like in America too. We care about ourselves: the individual. It was really important for us two have these two communities. He is lost in this community because we have to perform. To be a good citizen in our society you need to be successful and make money, and he doesn’t want to do that. His father did that and he was not happy. Felix is more like, “I don’t give a shit about being that.” He doesn’t want to be part of the system and she is not part of the system either.
Does he love Meira?
Maxime Giroux: I think he loves her more than she loves him, but she loves him too in a way too.
Do you think this sense of isolation in your film also comes from the idea that Quebec and French Canadians are an island within Canada?
Maxime Giroux: Yes. Right now we are a little bit lost in terms of who we are. In the 70s and 80s we were like, “Yes, we are French-Canadian! Quebecois!" We were proud of it. Now we are more like, “Yes, we are French-Canadian but at the same we want to make money and we want the same things as other Canadians. We don’t give a shit about who are. We just want to make money. “
Something that really makes the film emotionally poignant is that you don’t make Shulem, Meira’s husband, a villain. He is a man who loves his wife and child but who has chosen to live by the parameters of his faith.
Maxime Giroux: That was incredibly important. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in religion, but at the same time the goal of the film was to try to understand people who need religion. I didn’t understand them before making this movie. There are so many people who believe in and who need religion. It was important for me to represent them, which is why Meira's husband is very important. We had to see his humanity, not only the religion behind him but also the human. Most humans on this planet are good people. Most of them. I don’t have a number, but everywhere I've traveled most people are good. When you spend time with people you see most of them are good. Society or religion sometimes makes them bad.
In life, I hate police. In Montreal whenever there is a student protest I’m always on the student’s side, not the police. But I know that there are good people in the police force. That’s why I want to make a movie about police at some point, because I don’t like them and I want to like them a little bit more. I want to say to myself at the end of the journey, “You were wrong. There are some fucking good people in the police.”
Is there a reason why you don’t like police?
Maxime Giroux: I don’t like people with that kind of power. I feel like they are often on a power trip. Not all of them, but in my head I generalize them, just like I did with religion. After making “Felix and Meira” I understood that some people need religion and others simply don’t.
It’s very interesting and admirable that you make films about things you don’t understand in order to understand them better.
Maxime Giroux: Not only that I don’t understand, but that at the beginning of the process I’m against. I know that at the end I’ll change my ideas and that's the reason why I’m making a film on the subject. I want to understand those people and I want to prove to myself that humans and life are more complex and more beautiful than I thought.
Shulem is just doing what his religion mandates. It's definitely his choice, but we know that he doesn't have may options.
Maxime Giroux: He is also a victim. It was important for me to show that in the movie even if it’s subtle. Religion can be good, but in this case the problem is that if you don’t act like you are supposed to in that community people will slap your hand. They tell Meira, “You have to be like this. You have to have children and you have to take care of your children.” That’s the bad thing about this religion, and I wanted to show that. This guy is a victim of that because if the community would give women more space and freedom, he would still be with her. He would still be the father of that child and the husband to that woman.
Regarding the film's cinematography, what kind of references or specific styles did you discuss with your Dp? There is a classic, almost tender quality to the images.
Maxime Giroux: I've worked with Sara Mishara, the director of photography, before. I started working with her in university. We don’t have to talk a lot, but the few things we said to ourselves before starting the movie was that we wanted it to look a little bit like the immigrant movies of the 70s. Not “The Godfather” but all those movies about immigrants that took place in Brooklyn. For me Meira is an immigrant living in North America in a sense. We wanted the 70ish look or Gordon Willis-ish. I had the chance to visit some Hasidic households in Brooklyn and Montreal and all of the colors felt like if I was in the 70s. The color palette was really toned down and there were not bright colors. There might be bright colors sometimes in their clothing but not in the house. We decided to get some lenses that are not very good to avoid having a perfectly sharp image. We decided to make a very simple movie in terms of how we were going to shoot it and let the characters talk. We weren’t trying to do too much. We wanted to be humble like the characters and the subject. At the same we didn’t have a big budget, which I think was good for us because Sara didn’t really have the chance to light the scenes so we were playing with the sun and the available light. I think it gives the film a special quality.
The scenes in New York City, particularly those in Time Square, are incredibly beautiful and intimate. You found a very intimate moment between these two people in a crowded place full of lights.
Maxime Giroux: I thought the scene we shot in Time Square could turn out to be really cheesy, but it didn't. We didn’t have a lot of references for that scene, but I found a screen test that Natalie Wood and James Dean did for a movie. In that test they were doing what Felix and Meira do in the film. I don't know why, but I just did the same scene but in Time Square. I decided not to actually show Time Square but let the lights fall on them. We are in their bubble. It's funny because we had the camera but no lights, nobody saw or noticed us shooting there. The camera wasn't too big or high and there were so many people there that nobody thought we were shooting a movie. You can feel it in the scene, that they are in their bubble and the lights are just falling on them. For Meira, the character, this is special. Most Hasidic people in New York or Brooklyn have never gone to Time Square. They don't know what's there. For her is like, "Wow! There is also things like this out in the world," when for us it might like, "It's only Time Square." I think you can feel that for her it's not only Time Square, it's something more. It's something open, a big world has opened for her. I really like that scene and the music on it too.
Now that you mention music, that's one of the things Meira enjoys the most and that is also prohibited. She enjoys these classic pop songs but is not allowed to listen to them.
Maxime Giroux: Yes. She can't listen to that kind of music. Like I said, for me, and I think also for most people, music defines you or shapes you when you are young, especially when you are on your teens. That's why people still listen to U2 at 40-years-old, because when they discovered who they were that music was there. At 40-years-old you still the same person, you'll probably stay the same person all your life, and you still listen to U2. I don't understand that but that's how it is. She defined herself and found herself with this music, which is music by Black American singers from a particular time period. They were probably not slaves, but their mothers were slaves, they might feel like they are also slaves in a different way and they decide to take the fucking guitar and play music in a rebellious way.
Why did you decide to include that particular clip of this Black woman playing the guitar? It's also placed mostly without context within the narrative, a bold decision on your part because it break the cinematic grammar we are used to.
Maxime Giroux: That's the reason. For me this woman took this guitar in a man's world and said, "Fuck you! I'm gonna play the guitar and I'm gonna do whatever I want." That's what Meira wants, to do whatever she wants. At the beginning I was not supposed to put it in the movie but I decided to bring my computer on the set and I said to my Dp, Sara, "Can you film this clip on YouTube?" I started the clip and she started to shoot. Then the entire crew gathered around the computer saying, "Oh my God, what's that? It's so great" I knew it was great, and everyone was amazed by this woman, so I said, "I have to put this in the movie." I didn't know where, but during the editing process I needed a transition. I placed somewhere where you feel like something happened at that moment even if you don't see it. I thought, "Ok, I'm not supposed to do that as a filmmaker. It's a transgression, but I don't give shit. I just love this scene. I'm going to put it in and I know that some people will ask me why and I understand, but most people will like it. They will enjoy watching this big black woman emancipate herself by taking this guitar." Is the same idea during the scene at the Hispanic bar. This woman is dancing and she says to Meira, "Come dance with us." It was important for me that some women embraced Meira.
"Felix and Meira" is a great film, but it's a small. Did the positive reactions around the world surprise you? It did very well in the U.S. for a film its size.
Maxime Giroux: For sure. You are always surprised when you have success. It's not a huge success, but is still a success. The film cost nearly half a million dollars, so we were very surprised. At the same time I knew that the subject was interesting. Every time someone asked me, "What's your next movie?" I would say, "We'll it's a love story between a French Canadian man and a Hasidic woman who is married and has a daughter." Everyone was like, "Oh that's interesting." I knew that before shooting the movie but I was really afraid. I'm not Jewish, and it's difficult to make a movie about this subject. Telefilm Canada gave me money, but the Quebec government didn't give me money. They said, "How can you talk about them? You are not a Jew." I was really afraid and I knew that I had to be careful, but I also knew that people were interested in this story - even if it's a classic story. Also, when you put music like that in the movie you know that people will be easily touched. In cinema you can put a song like that and a plate of fruit on the screen and people will be touched. Let's be honest. Music is the easiest way to manipulate the audience in a movie. The director has to manipulate the audience in a good way, but music is the easiest way to manipulate the audience. You put a David Bowie song and people from that era will be touched because they will remember, "Oh that was the song that I liked when I was 16."
Now that "Felix and Meira" is traveling on its own two feet and is out there in the world, what are you working on next? Another small character study perhaps or something bigger?
Maxime Giroux: My next project will involve music. I was a drummer before and I did a lot of music videos. For my first film I refused to use music because I thought it was too easy. On "Felix and Meira" I said, "Fuck it, I'm doing whatever I want. I'm doing it for me." But the next one is about a female singer who is not very famous but everywhere around the world some people know about her. Sort of like Grimes, she can walk down the street and most people wont recognize her, but everywhere in the world some people do know her. The character is French Canadian but she sings in English. She has some money problems and to solve this problems she is going to do a concert in China with a cover band at a hotel. However, the real reason why she is doing it is to do some industrial spying in China
"Felix and Meira" is now available on DVD and on digital platforms.
- 11/26/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Besides being associated with careless joys and romantic exploits, part of summer’s seductive appeal is that, assuming one gets time off from daily responsibilities, it provides an opportunity to reassess and recharge. During this usually warm and relaxed time of he year people are expected to be more active, to spend time outside, and to utilize their time enjoying activities that their lifestyles don’t always allow them to.
Vacation sounds fun indeed, but when you are a young twenty-something struggling to find a clear path for the rest of your life, summer is more of a difficult transitioning period than a celebratory season. Once the fall comes reality will be there waiting to make its presence known. With unassuming intelligence and modest imagery, Stéphane Lafleur's imaginative Quebecois feature “Tu Dors Nicole” (You're Sleeping, Nicole) encompasses such feelings of youthful uncertainty.
Relishing each day she gets to spend home alone while her parents are out of town, Nicole (Julianne Côté) is a young woman without much going on in her life and in desperate need of purpose. Her suburban neighborhood lacks excitement and new faces to be enticed by. Most days, when she is not working at the local second hand clothing store, Nicole rides her bike and eats ice cream with her best friend Véronique to fight the ravaging heat. In turn, Véronique (Catherine St-Laurent), who is clearly the more colorful and friendly of the two, works in an office for an elderly man in order to afford repairing her true love - her car. It all seems like monotonous simplicity until Nicole decides to use her newly acquired credit card to pay for them to take a trip to the remote Scandinavian nation of Iceland.
To her surprise, however, her older brother Rémi (Marc-André Grondin) has decided to stay at their parents’ house as well, and he’s brought his band along to work on songs for an upcoming album. Instantly Nicole's plans for a few peaceful days before heading out on her adventure have vanished. She needs to get out of this quiet, unnamed town before she blows up. Magnifying her unbearable situation, she also suffers from insomnia and often wanders the streets at night to occupy her restless mind.
Ingenuously written to elicit thoughtful significance from what could be perceived as mundane incidents, “Tu Dors Nicole” is elegantly laced with magical realism that intensify the delicate dreamy atmosphere. In a collection of curiously comedic assets, an indelible highlight is Nicole’s interaction with 10-year-old Martin (Godefroy Reding), a precocious boy with the baritone voice of a seasoned adult man.
Shamelessly outspoken about his feelings for her, Martin tries to convince Nicole that is their destiny to be together. These moments are strangely charming and surreal at once. Lafleur is clever at including other elements along these lines, including whimsical sound effects to denote the endless possibilities his world offers, to make his audience question whether Nicole is walking in a dream or awake in a fantastical reality.
Although certainly not interested in Martin’s adorable advances, Nicole has her own unresolved love issues with and ex-boyfriend and is also tempted to pursue the mysterious Jf (Francis La Haye), one of her brother’s band mates. Everything that’s happening around her is part of growing up, and she is not ready to confront how quickly everything is changing even when it seems to remain static. Is not that she refuses to accept the inevitable obstacles of adulthood, but this summer has tested her loyalties and goals all at once.
Shot on 35mm by Sara Mishara, the film makes use of familiar surroundings and renders them interesting in a minimalist manner. Complementing this is Côté’s tranquil demeanor and almost imperceptible confidence that don’t expose much about how Nicole is feeling, but encourages the viewer to try to find out more about her. Also noteworthy is the way Lafleur, who is also a musician himself, employs the music that exist organically in is story, specifically from Rémi’s band, and the sounds of nature to score his work.
Reminiscent of Baumbach’s “Frances Ha,” both in tone and in its use of evocative black-and-white cinematography in a modern setting, Lafleur's film might come across as slight or unchallenging for those who seek evident philosophical statements or intricate plot twists. But it’s exactly in that unpretentiousness and effortless complexity that “Tu Dors Nicole” becomes more efficient at being memorable and insightful. Just like waking up from a delightful sleep-induced fantasy in which some sequences aren’t fully coherent, but knowing all them say something profound about you.
"Tu Dors Nicole" is now playing in NYC at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and opens in Miami Beach on June 12th at the Miami Beach Cinematheque...
Vacation sounds fun indeed, but when you are a young twenty-something struggling to find a clear path for the rest of your life, summer is more of a difficult transitioning period than a celebratory season. Once the fall comes reality will be there waiting to make its presence known. With unassuming intelligence and modest imagery, Stéphane Lafleur's imaginative Quebecois feature “Tu Dors Nicole” (You're Sleeping, Nicole) encompasses such feelings of youthful uncertainty.
Relishing each day she gets to spend home alone while her parents are out of town, Nicole (Julianne Côté) is a young woman without much going on in her life and in desperate need of purpose. Her suburban neighborhood lacks excitement and new faces to be enticed by. Most days, when she is not working at the local second hand clothing store, Nicole rides her bike and eats ice cream with her best friend Véronique to fight the ravaging heat. In turn, Véronique (Catherine St-Laurent), who is clearly the more colorful and friendly of the two, works in an office for an elderly man in order to afford repairing her true love - her car. It all seems like monotonous simplicity until Nicole decides to use her newly acquired credit card to pay for them to take a trip to the remote Scandinavian nation of Iceland.
To her surprise, however, her older brother Rémi (Marc-André Grondin) has decided to stay at their parents’ house as well, and he’s brought his band along to work on songs for an upcoming album. Instantly Nicole's plans for a few peaceful days before heading out on her adventure have vanished. She needs to get out of this quiet, unnamed town before she blows up. Magnifying her unbearable situation, she also suffers from insomnia and often wanders the streets at night to occupy her restless mind.
Ingenuously written to elicit thoughtful significance from what could be perceived as mundane incidents, “Tu Dors Nicole” is elegantly laced with magical realism that intensify the delicate dreamy atmosphere. In a collection of curiously comedic assets, an indelible highlight is Nicole’s interaction with 10-year-old Martin (Godefroy Reding), a precocious boy with the baritone voice of a seasoned adult man.
Shamelessly outspoken about his feelings for her, Martin tries to convince Nicole that is their destiny to be together. These moments are strangely charming and surreal at once. Lafleur is clever at including other elements along these lines, including whimsical sound effects to denote the endless possibilities his world offers, to make his audience question whether Nicole is walking in a dream or awake in a fantastical reality.
Although certainly not interested in Martin’s adorable advances, Nicole has her own unresolved love issues with and ex-boyfriend and is also tempted to pursue the mysterious Jf (Francis La Haye), one of her brother’s band mates. Everything that’s happening around her is part of growing up, and she is not ready to confront how quickly everything is changing even when it seems to remain static. Is not that she refuses to accept the inevitable obstacles of adulthood, but this summer has tested her loyalties and goals all at once.
Shot on 35mm by Sara Mishara, the film makes use of familiar surroundings and renders them interesting in a minimalist manner. Complementing this is Côté’s tranquil demeanor and almost imperceptible confidence that don’t expose much about how Nicole is feeling, but encourages the viewer to try to find out more about her. Also noteworthy is the way Lafleur, who is also a musician himself, employs the music that exist organically in is story, specifically from Rémi’s band, and the sounds of nature to score his work.
Reminiscent of Baumbach’s “Frances Ha,” both in tone and in its use of evocative black-and-white cinematography in a modern setting, Lafleur's film might come across as slight or unchallenging for those who seek evident philosophical statements or intricate plot twists. But it’s exactly in that unpretentiousness and effortless complexity that “Tu Dors Nicole” becomes more efficient at being memorable and insightful. Just like waking up from a delightful sleep-induced fantasy in which some sequences aren’t fully coherent, but knowing all them say something profound about you.
"Tu Dors Nicole" is now playing in NYC at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and opens in Miami Beach on June 12th at the Miami Beach Cinematheque...
- 6/1/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
David Gordon Green returns to his alma mater to present Manglehorn; local newcomers impress with Homeless feature.Scroll down for full list of winners
RiverRun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, wrapped last night with Shawkat Amin Korki’s Memories on Stone winning best narrative feature and Hao Zhou’s The Chinese Mayor winning best documentary feature.
In the audience awards, best of the fest went to honoree Stanley Nelson’s The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution; best narrative feature went to Anywhere Else by Ester Amrami; best documentary feature went to Marc Silver’s 3 ½ Minutes and best indie was Proud Citizen by Thomas Southerland.
The festival presented 165 films in total in its 17th annual edition; more filmmakers than ever before attended the event.
“Films showcased at our festival this year reflected diverse stories from around the world, immense talent from directors, many trained in Winston-Salem, and a host of passionate projects that are jewels...
RiverRun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, wrapped last night with Shawkat Amin Korki’s Memories on Stone winning best narrative feature and Hao Zhou’s The Chinese Mayor winning best documentary feature.
In the audience awards, best of the fest went to honoree Stanley Nelson’s The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution; best narrative feature went to Anywhere Else by Ester Amrami; best documentary feature went to Marc Silver’s 3 ½ Minutes and best indie was Proud Citizen by Thomas Southerland.
The festival presented 165 films in total in its 17th annual edition; more filmmakers than ever before attended the event.
“Films showcased at our festival this year reflected diverse stories from around the world, immense talent from directors, many trained in Winston-Salem, and a host of passionate projects that are jewels...
- 4/27/2015
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Concealed under subtle gestures, comfortable silences, and the mutual reassurance that one’s imperfections are insignificant, lies the foundation for our romanticized idea of love. One that cares little for consequence and that offers relief from the burdens of routine. This is exactly the kind of ferocious emotion director Maxime Giroux presents his characters with in “Felix and Meira,” his alluring portrayal of an improbable relationship between a married Hasidic woman and a secular middle-aged man going through a crisis.
Tales of forbidden romance between people from opposing worlds are evidently commonplace, but here Giroux handles the strong yearning for tangible connection afflicting both parties with utmost sincerity never asking for his protagonists to reveal more or to give more than they can within their strictly defined boundaries.
Taking care of her daughter and being and active and honorable member of the Hasidic community is all that’s expected of Meira (Hadas Yaron), a beautiful young woman who is clearly dissatisfied with the restrictive expectations of her religious existence. Her husband Shulem (Luzer Twersky) is by no means a perfectly devotee, but he strives to please his fellow men by showing he can manage his household and conform to the defined norms. There is affection in their marriage, but it can only be perceived through cracks in the walls of a fortress made of rules and regulations that separates them.
Nearby, Felix (Martin Dubreuil), a perpetually ambitionless bachelor, is dealing with his father’s imminent death and their irreparable detachment. Although members of the same Montreal neighborhood both Meira and Felix carry out parallel lives unaware of one another. They each enjoy drawing silly creatures, and when they meet at a Jewish deli one morning, this seemingly irrelevant coincidence is enough to ignite their interest.
As Giroux crafts opportunities for the lovebirds to develop intimacy, which go from childishly playing ping pong to enjoying some tunes in silence, he doesn’t forget their particular dilemmas and the risks that the mere idea of hanging out represents for Meira. While mostly quiet, she is an intriguing box of tiny secrets that expose her true personality underneath the oppressive façade she must wear. Small demonstrations of rebellion assert Meira’s individuality even if briefly. Listening to music from a record she must keep hidden, playing with noisy mousetraps despite Shulem’s disapproval, and most importantly, deciding over her own body when those around her pressure her to have more children.
With her captivating and powerfully expressive gaze, Yaron gives Meira a balanced air of innocence and subdued defiance. Slowly, as Felix invites her to discover the sounds and sights beyond the opaque environment she knows, Meira falls for him both because of his kind efforts and because he symbolizes freedom. Yet, Giroux’s film is not concerned with denouncing any particular belief or to depict religion as a paralyzing aspect of Meira’s life, instead he advocates for choice by showing there are other people, Shulem included, that are comfortable with what their faith asks of them. Meira is not, and in this culture straying from the flock has severe repercussions.
Similarly, the men in Meira’s life are confronted with their respective predicaments both as individuals and in relation to her. Felix believes his father was disappointed in him and this becomes a torturous thought, while Shulem can’t fathom the idea of losing his family and being seen as a failure. Giroux refrains from vilifying either of them or judging their reactions, because his three subjects suffer from devastating loneliness that can’t be simply rationalized.
In a marvelously touching scene Felix and Shulem discuss their feelings and, while clarifying they are enemies in the battlefield of love, they also agree that their common goal should be Meira’s happiness. Both Dubreuil’s effortlessly charming demeanor and Twersky’s stern, yet caring, performance capture two distinct versions of romantic love that keep Meira at a crossroads.
Enhancing the strong narrative at hand even further, Giroux makes use of every other storytelling element in a deliberately delicate manner. Even if for some the lack of lengthy dialogue or heavy-handed exposition might appear problematic, these qualities allow the filmmaker to rely, as he should, on the audiovisual aspects. Sara Mishara’s cinematography is brilliantly elegant throughout, but when the couple meets in New York, the shiny lights and crowded streets add a gorgeous exuberance. Colored by neon hues Felix and Meira look even more like two foreigners to the city, to love, and to each other, just trying to make sense of it all.
As an interesting extra touch, Giroux takes the time to momentarily drives away from the central conflict and focuses on singular occurrences like a conversation between a couple of bystanders or to drift into a musical sequence that is equally vibrant and timeless. Music is indeed a fantastic part of “Felix and Meira” whether is classic ballads or themes composed by Olivier Alary.
Unassumingly, Giroux transcended the shackles of familiarity and created a film that is not revolutionary, but definitely remarkable. To love out of choice or to love out of duty is what Meira must decide, but as we see in the film’s perfectly ambiguous conclusion, neither option is faultless. “Felix and Meira” is an exquisite portrait of a possibly futile love that exudes seductive melancholia and delightful nuances.
Now playing in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal and Laemmle's Town Center, and in NYC at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas...
Tales of forbidden romance between people from opposing worlds are evidently commonplace, but here Giroux handles the strong yearning for tangible connection afflicting both parties with utmost sincerity never asking for his protagonists to reveal more or to give more than they can within their strictly defined boundaries.
Taking care of her daughter and being and active and honorable member of the Hasidic community is all that’s expected of Meira (Hadas Yaron), a beautiful young woman who is clearly dissatisfied with the restrictive expectations of her religious existence. Her husband Shulem (Luzer Twersky) is by no means a perfectly devotee, but he strives to please his fellow men by showing he can manage his household and conform to the defined norms. There is affection in their marriage, but it can only be perceived through cracks in the walls of a fortress made of rules and regulations that separates them.
Nearby, Felix (Martin Dubreuil), a perpetually ambitionless bachelor, is dealing with his father’s imminent death and their irreparable detachment. Although members of the same Montreal neighborhood both Meira and Felix carry out parallel lives unaware of one another. They each enjoy drawing silly creatures, and when they meet at a Jewish deli one morning, this seemingly irrelevant coincidence is enough to ignite their interest.
As Giroux crafts opportunities for the lovebirds to develop intimacy, which go from childishly playing ping pong to enjoying some tunes in silence, he doesn’t forget their particular dilemmas and the risks that the mere idea of hanging out represents for Meira. While mostly quiet, she is an intriguing box of tiny secrets that expose her true personality underneath the oppressive façade she must wear. Small demonstrations of rebellion assert Meira’s individuality even if briefly. Listening to music from a record she must keep hidden, playing with noisy mousetraps despite Shulem’s disapproval, and most importantly, deciding over her own body when those around her pressure her to have more children.
With her captivating and powerfully expressive gaze, Yaron gives Meira a balanced air of innocence and subdued defiance. Slowly, as Felix invites her to discover the sounds and sights beyond the opaque environment she knows, Meira falls for him both because of his kind efforts and because he symbolizes freedom. Yet, Giroux’s film is not concerned with denouncing any particular belief or to depict religion as a paralyzing aspect of Meira’s life, instead he advocates for choice by showing there are other people, Shulem included, that are comfortable with what their faith asks of them. Meira is not, and in this culture straying from the flock has severe repercussions.
Similarly, the men in Meira’s life are confronted with their respective predicaments both as individuals and in relation to her. Felix believes his father was disappointed in him and this becomes a torturous thought, while Shulem can’t fathom the idea of losing his family and being seen as a failure. Giroux refrains from vilifying either of them or judging their reactions, because his three subjects suffer from devastating loneliness that can’t be simply rationalized.
In a marvelously touching scene Felix and Shulem discuss their feelings and, while clarifying they are enemies in the battlefield of love, they also agree that their common goal should be Meira’s happiness. Both Dubreuil’s effortlessly charming demeanor and Twersky’s stern, yet caring, performance capture two distinct versions of romantic love that keep Meira at a crossroads.
Enhancing the strong narrative at hand even further, Giroux makes use of every other storytelling element in a deliberately delicate manner. Even if for some the lack of lengthy dialogue or heavy-handed exposition might appear problematic, these qualities allow the filmmaker to rely, as he should, on the audiovisual aspects. Sara Mishara’s cinematography is brilliantly elegant throughout, but when the couple meets in New York, the shiny lights and crowded streets add a gorgeous exuberance. Colored by neon hues Felix and Meira look even more like two foreigners to the city, to love, and to each other, just trying to make sense of it all.
As an interesting extra touch, Giroux takes the time to momentarily drives away from the central conflict and focuses on singular occurrences like a conversation between a couple of bystanders or to drift into a musical sequence that is equally vibrant and timeless. Music is indeed a fantastic part of “Felix and Meira” whether is classic ballads or themes composed by Olivier Alary.
Unassumingly, Giroux transcended the shackles of familiarity and created a film that is not revolutionary, but definitely remarkable. To love out of choice or to love out of duty is what Meira must decide, but as we see in the film’s perfectly ambiguous conclusion, neither option is faultless. “Felix and Meira” is an exquisite portrait of a possibly futile love that exudes seductive melancholia and delightful nuances.
Now playing in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal and Laemmle's Town Center, and in NYC at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas...
- 4/25/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
What’s Under the Hat?: Giroux Proposes Unorthodox Paradox
Confectioned with a what makes us different makes us the same counterargument, Maxime Giroux’s third feature is one that finds commonalities between the profiled insular community and those who are lonely while visibly surrounded by others. And while the improbability of the hypothetically tinged union arguably makes this akin to science fiction matter, the apolitical, unified titular observational drama moves beyond the losing religious faith template with its moving, lingering anti-loquacious stance. Worldly in its reach and neighborly in approach, Félix et Meira is thoughtful tableaux that verberates with unabashedly sensitivity — this is Giroux’s most affecting film to date.
While fertility rates of 50’s & 60’s Quebec have plummeted to dismal rates for most French Canadians, comparatively, Montreal’s Orthodox Jewish community maintain old fashion practices of ensuring there is a next of kin. Just one among the many...
Confectioned with a what makes us different makes us the same counterargument, Maxime Giroux’s third feature is one that finds commonalities between the profiled insular community and those who are lonely while visibly surrounded by others. And while the improbability of the hypothetically tinged union arguably makes this akin to science fiction matter, the apolitical, unified titular observational drama moves beyond the losing religious faith template with its moving, lingering anti-loquacious stance. Worldly in its reach and neighborly in approach, Félix et Meira is thoughtful tableaux that verberates with unabashedly sensitivity — this is Giroux’s most affecting film to date.
While fertility rates of 50’s & 60’s Quebec have plummeted to dismal rates for most French Canadians, comparatively, Montreal’s Orthodox Jewish community maintain old fashion practices of ensuring there is a next of kin. Just one among the many...
- 4/13/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Xavier Dolan tied contemporaries Philippe Falardeau and Denis Villeneuve by winning his second Best Feature award at the 17th annual Jutra Awards. Quebec’s answer to the Oscars was a rather suspense-less affair as Mommy claimed nine (plus the top box office award honor) awards winning in all major categories with the exclusion of Best Supporting Actor category win, which would only end up going to Dolan’s other nominated film, Tom at the Farm. Pierre-Yves Cardinal was sublime in his predatory type role and as was the case for several nominees, was hard at work on another project and therefore not on hand for trophyware. Ricardo Trogi’s throwback to awkward teen years tale 1987 did win a trio of awards, but if there were any surprises in the Dolan camp it was the acceptance speeches: Dolan delivered a keynote speech type quality for the last win of the night...
- 3/16/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Tu dors Nicole
Written and directed by Stéphane Lafleur
Canada, 2014
Tu dors Nicole is the newest feature film from Quebec filmmaker Stéphane Lafleur. The film premiered at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, a section specifically focused on emerging auteurs of the screen. Nicole (Julianne Côté) is 22 years old and is house-sitting while her parents are on vacation. She spends most of her days wandering aimlessly with her friend, Veronique. The atmosphere of ennui, though, is loudly interrupted when her brother and his band arrive, setting up shop in the family living room. The film explores the aimless summers of youth and the seemingly directionless future that awaits the young Nicole. She is withdrawn and sullen, but through a quiet surrealism Lafleur peels back the layers, evoking a sense of phantasmagoria, where reality and dream exist simultaneously.
Intentionally or not, Lafleur’s film quickly harkens back to another Quebec film...
Written and directed by Stéphane Lafleur
Canada, 2014
Tu dors Nicole is the newest feature film from Quebec filmmaker Stéphane Lafleur. The film premiered at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, a section specifically focused on emerging auteurs of the screen. Nicole (Julianne Côté) is 22 years old and is house-sitting while her parents are on vacation. She spends most of her days wandering aimlessly with her friend, Veronique. The atmosphere of ennui, though, is loudly interrupted when her brother and his band arrive, setting up shop in the family living room. The film explores the aimless summers of youth and the seemingly directionless future that awaits the young Nicole. She is withdrawn and sullen, but through a quiet surrealism Lafleur peels back the layers, evoking a sense of phantasmagoria, where reality and dream exist simultaneously.
Intentionally or not, Lafleur’s film quickly harkens back to another Quebec film...
- 9/8/2014
- by Justine Smith
- SoundOnSight
Tu Dors Nicole
Director: Stéphane Lafleur
Writer: Stéphane Lafleur
Producers: micro_scope’s Luc Déry and Kim McCraw
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Julianne Côté, Catherine St-Laurent, Marc-André Grondin, Francis La Haye and Simon Larouche
The tendency of throwing his Coenesque character set into perilous type of predicaments should continue with his summer set, boys vs. girls titled Tu Dors Nicole. A third feature for Quebecois helmer Stéphane Lafleur, we fully expect to stick to the same black humor template found in his previous pair: the festival favorites Continental, un film and En terrain connu.
Gist: Enjoying the family home while her parents are away, Nicole (22 years old) is quietly spending the first weeks of her year off until her older brother Rémi shows up with his music group. The summer then takes an unexpected turn for Nicole and her best friend Véronique.
Release Date: Filming took place last...
Director: Stéphane Lafleur
Writer: Stéphane Lafleur
Producers: micro_scope’s Luc Déry and Kim McCraw
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Julianne Côté, Catherine St-Laurent, Marc-André Grondin, Francis La Haye and Simon Larouche
The tendency of throwing his Coenesque character set into perilous type of predicaments should continue with his summer set, boys vs. girls titled Tu Dors Nicole. A third feature for Quebecois helmer Stéphane Lafleur, we fully expect to stick to the same black humor template found in his previous pair: the festival favorites Continental, un film and En terrain connu.
Gist: Enjoying the family home while her parents are away, Nicole (22 years old) is quietly spending the first weeks of her year off until her older brother Rémi shows up with his music group. The summer then takes an unexpected turn for Nicole and her best friend Véronique.
Release Date: Filming took place last...
- 2/4/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Roméo Onze (English title: Romeo Eleven)
Directed by Ivan Grbovic
Screenplay by Sara Mishara and Ivan Grbovic
Canada, 2011
If the past two years are any indication, the face of Québec cinema has changed dramatically. Make no mistake about it, there are still plenty of fine films which feature as their central characters men and women regularly designated as ‘Québécois de souches’ (born and bred Québécois whose ancestral ties to the province go back a generation or two), but if Incendies and Monsieur Lazhar, both of which attained Oscar nominee status in consecutive years, have proved anything, it is that la Belle Province has far more cultural complexity to offer than in decades past, which in turn produces a much wider array of possible stories to share. The trend continues with writer-director Ivan Grbovic’s first feature length picture, Roméo Onze, which explores the trials and tribulations of a handicapped Montreal teen of Lebanese descent.
Directed by Ivan Grbovic
Screenplay by Sara Mishara and Ivan Grbovic
Canada, 2011
If the past two years are any indication, the face of Québec cinema has changed dramatically. Make no mistake about it, there are still plenty of fine films which feature as their central characters men and women regularly designated as ‘Québécois de souches’ (born and bred Québécois whose ancestral ties to the province go back a generation or two), but if Incendies and Monsieur Lazhar, both of which attained Oscar nominee status in consecutive years, have proved anything, it is that la Belle Province has far more cultural complexity to offer than in decades past, which in turn produces a much wider array of possible stories to share. The trend continues with writer-director Ivan Grbovic’s first feature length picture, Roméo Onze, which explores the trials and tribulations of a handicapped Montreal teen of Lebanese descent.
- 2/28/2012
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Who is Rami? Or better yet, who should Rami be? It’s the question he fears to ask himself while the people surrounding him attempt to give the answer. Should he be the accounting major at university his father pushes him to be? Should he be out trying to meet nice young girls to make his mother happy? How about the amiable brother that escorts his sister around town so she can have college life fun away from her more traditional family? Or maybe Rami is simply a physically-disabled young man without a clue as to what his next step will be.
Not wanting to be any of the above, he decides to live out a fantasy online as ‘romeo11’. Through this persona he can delete all those parts of himself that have caused such grief his entire life. By appropriating bits and pieces of the many Ramis the world wishes he could be,...
Not wanting to be any of the above, he decides to live out a fantasy online as ‘romeo11’. Through this persona he can delete all those parts of himself that have caused such grief his entire life. By appropriating bits and pieces of the many Ramis the world wishes he could be,...
- 9/11/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
While he's known for directing video clips or shorts, Canadian director Ivan Grbovic will give life to his first feature film, which is called De grandes espérances. Production on the film will be underway from September 20 to November 10.
The film takes place in the Lebanese community in Montreal.
Rami is a Canadian of Lebanese of heritage, is 24 years old and is in wheel chair. Despite all the obstacles he's facing in his quotidian, Rami is trying to find his place in society. Will he overcome his protective father and his shyness?
Moreover, the cast of the film hasn't been announced.
The film's storyline will be written by Ivan Grbovic and Sara Mishara.
Finally, the film will be release in Quebec in 2011. However, there's no confirmation whether it will be a general or a limited release, because De grandes espérances is an independent film.
For your curiosity:
1. Facebook page of the film.
The film takes place in the Lebanese community in Montreal.
Rami is a Canadian of Lebanese of heritage, is 24 years old and is in wheel chair. Despite all the obstacles he's facing in his quotidian, Rami is trying to find his place in society. Will he overcome his protective father and his shyness?
Moreover, the cast of the film hasn't been announced.
The film's storyline will be written by Ivan Grbovic and Sara Mishara.
Finally, the film will be release in Quebec in 2011. However, there's no confirmation whether it will be a general or a limited release, because De grandes espérances is an independent film.
For your curiosity:
1. Facebook page of the film.
- 8/3/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
Canadian director Maxime Giroux is preparing to present to the world his second feature film, Jo pour Jonathan. This independent film made with a budget of $90,000 will be presented in competition at the Locarno International Film Festival in the Concorso Cineasti del presente (Filmmakers of the Present Competition) this coming August.
The story was penned by Giroux himself and Alexandre Laferrière.
We follow Jo, a guy who lives in the shadow of his big brother. They are both juvenile criminals who are interested in illegal street racing. Eventually, they'll get into it.
The film stars up-and-coming actor Raphaël Lacaille, as well as Jean-Sébastien Courchesne and Vanessa Pilon. A longtime collaborator, Director of Photography Sara Mishara once again joined forces with Giroux on this project.
Finally, no release date has been confirmed, but the producers say that it should happen in early 2011.
The story was penned by Giroux himself and Alexandre Laferrière.
We follow Jo, a guy who lives in the shadow of his big brother. They are both juvenile criminals who are interested in illegal street racing. Eventually, they'll get into it.
The film stars up-and-coming actor Raphaël Lacaille, as well as Jean-Sébastien Courchesne and Vanessa Pilon. A longtime collaborator, Director of Photography Sara Mishara once again joined forces with Giroux on this project.
Finally, no release date has been confirmed, but the producers say that it should happen in early 2011.
- 7/22/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
Yesterday, the Jutra Awards, Quebec's Oscars, were presented. I personally didn't have the time to watch it, because I was finishing some research papers. However, here's the list of winners for this year's Jutra Awards.
Best feature film:
* 1981.
* Dédé, à travers les brumes.
* [Winner] J'ai tué ma mère.
* Polytechnique.
* Le jour avant le lendemain (Before Tomorrow).
Best director:
* Ricardo Trogi for 1981.
* Marie-Hélène Cousineau et Madeline Piujuq for Before Tomorrow.
* Jean-Philippe Duval for Dédé à travers les brumes.
* Xavier Dolan for J’ai tué ma mère.
* [Winner] Denis Villeneuve for Polytechnique.
Best actress:
* Céline Bonnier in Je me souviens.
* Marie-Thérèse Fortin in Les grandes chaleurs.
* Élise Guilbault in La Donation.
* [Winner] Anne Dorval in J’ai tué ma mère.
* Isabelle Guérard in Détour.
Best actor:
* Jean-Carl Boucher in 1981.
* Michel Côté in De Père en flic.
* Normand D’Amour in 5150, rue des Ormes.
* Xavier Dolan in J’ai tué ma mère.
* [Winner] Sébastien Ricard in Dédé à travers les brumes.
Best feature film:
* 1981.
* Dédé, à travers les brumes.
* [Winner] J'ai tué ma mère.
* Polytechnique.
* Le jour avant le lendemain (Before Tomorrow).
Best director:
* Ricardo Trogi for 1981.
* Marie-Hélène Cousineau et Madeline Piujuq for Before Tomorrow.
* Jean-Philippe Duval for Dédé à travers les brumes.
* Xavier Dolan for J’ai tué ma mère.
* [Winner] Denis Villeneuve for Polytechnique.
Best actress:
* Céline Bonnier in Je me souviens.
* Marie-Thérèse Fortin in Les grandes chaleurs.
* Élise Guilbault in La Donation.
* [Winner] Anne Dorval in J’ai tué ma mère.
* Isabelle Guérard in Détour.
Best actor:
* Jean-Carl Boucher in 1981.
* Michel Côté in De Père en flic.
* Normand D’Amour in 5150, rue des Ormes.
* Xavier Dolan in J’ai tué ma mère.
* [Winner] Sébastien Ricard in Dédé à travers les brumes.
- 3/29/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
This afternoon, the nominees for the Jutra Award, Quebec's own Oscars, were announced. Unlike last year, there are two new things that we should expect to see. The first one being that the jury will be formed by 18 people. Secondly, all members of the jury have seen the films that are nominated. Besides, the host of evening will be Patrice L'Écuyer and the ceremony will take place at La Tohu on March 28. Also note that the Jutra Award will be broadcasted live on Radio-Canada. Anyway, the following is the list of nominees.
Best feature film:
* 1981.
* Dédé, à travers les brumes.
* J'ai tué ma mère.
* Polytechnique.
* Le jour avant le lendemain (Before Tomorrow).
Best director:
* Ricardo Trogi for 1981
* Marie-Hélène Cousineau et Madeline Piujuq for Before Tomorrow.
* Jean-Philippe Duval for Dédé à travers les brumes.
* Xavier Dolan for J’ai tué ma mère.
* Denis Villeneuve for Polytechnique.
Best actress:
* Céline Bonnier in Je me souviens.
Best feature film:
* 1981.
* Dédé, à travers les brumes.
* J'ai tué ma mère.
* Polytechnique.
* Le jour avant le lendemain (Before Tomorrow).
Best director:
* Ricardo Trogi for 1981
* Marie-Hélène Cousineau et Madeline Piujuq for Before Tomorrow.
* Jean-Philippe Duval for Dédé à travers les brumes.
* Xavier Dolan for J’ai tué ma mère.
* Denis Villeneuve for Polytechnique.
Best actress:
* Céline Bonnier in Je me souviens.
- 2/17/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
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