Projectsdevelopment in progress
THE HEART DIES LAST
Adapted from the novel by Robert Lalonde published by Éditions Boréales (FF - French)
Written by Gabriel Sabourin
Directed by Alexis Durand Brault
Filming started in February 2016
Planned release in February 2017
At 47, Julian is an eternel misfit with no real job. But now that he has published an autobiography recounting his childhood memories, a complicated relationship with his mother and troubling family secrets, success is knocking on his door. Julian and his mother have cut ties a long time ago and she doesn’t know about the book. Living a sad and miserable life in a retirement home, she renews contact with her son to make up for lost time. But is that all there is to it?
THE HEART DIES LAST is a story about family, love and life.
Zénith
Adapted from the story "Le Chien" by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt published by Albin Michel (LM - French)
Script written by Frédéric Ouellet
Directed by Alexis Durand Brault
Phase writing / filming expected in H2 2017
Following the death of his dog, Gabriel Vidal, an old secretive and gruff doctor commits suicide. Some, including his own daughter Mireille, believe that he perhaps loved this animal more than humans. Others suspect that younger, Gabriel committed a terrible crime with which he is no longer able to live with.
The truth is revealed by the narrator of this story, relating Gabriel’s life from the moment when, in the 50s, at the age of thirteen, he was unjustly locked up in an asylum for insanity. Trapped in this hellish place, he was bullied both physically and psychologically.
Slowly but surely, forged by abuse and deprivation, Gabriel, who was an amiable and quick-witted child, lost his dignity, his reason and all compassion. After three terrible years of incarceration, while the last thread that connects him to humanity is about to break, Gabriel makes a providential encounter with a stray dog. Despite being separated by a metal fence surrounding the asylum, Gabriel and the dog, baptized Zenith, forge a deep yet illegal friendship.
Soon enough, Gabriel finds the strength to fight and to become a human being again. With the help of Zenith, Gabriel, now sixteen, manages to escape from the asylum and go back to Victor Cyr, the jealous classmate who schemed in favour of his lock up. Will Gabriel push through his desire for revenge consuming him?
Sixty years later, revealing his identity to Mireille at the funeral of Gabriel, the narrator makes us understand the full extent of the tragedy, the beauty of redemption, and all the suffering that crime may cause, as much among victims… than the one who commits it.
Le test Clooney
(FF - French)
Co Written by Sophie Lorain and Catherine Léger
Directed by Sophie Lorain
In writing phase
Motivated by the fear of being unmasked, Brigitte, fraudster and pathological liar, is preparing to liquidate everything to repay investors she managed to trap with a Ponzi scheme. But then, she meets Martin. It’s love at first sight… a one way love! Brigitte will make every effort to seduce Martin, inventing a romance with George Clooney, and living up to this false idyll with an extravagant lifestyle and ridiculously expensive gifts.
Martin, who still can’t believe he’s actually competing with George Clooney, ends up falling in love with Brigitte and hope that she will choose him… And she does! She promises to never see Clooney again. Brigitte and Martin go all out and get married. The day after the wedding, Brigitte is ruined, investors want their due and investigators ask to see her financial statements… Everything seems going bad for Brigitte, but the worst is yet to come: George Clooney, the true one, arrives in her life, falls for her and thereby threatens to destroy her relationship with Martin whom she now truly loves, and to bring to light all the scam.
Qu'est-ce que tu deviens ?
Co Written by Guylaine Bachand & Julie Hivon
Directed by Julie Hivon
In funding
Jonathan Larivière was the darling of his small hometown before becoming a well known star of the National Hockey League. Unfortunately, due to a bad injury, his career took an early and definitive end.
Not knowing where to go, Jonathan decides to go back home. Soon caught between his inconsolable mother, brothers with heavy hearts and old friends oddly happy of his misfortune, Jonathan must learn how to live as a “regular” guy, which he never had to.
While everyone is trying to find him a new life, Jonathan impulsively decides to become a “rancher”… But our cowboy realizes pretty quickly that turning your life around is a little more complex than simply buying a horse… By reconnecting with his family and getting closer to the beautiful Ariane, Jonathan eventually discovers who he really is when the game is over.
Sometimes, plan B is not so bad … Sometimes our plan B is the right one.
Le prince des jouisseurs
Based on the eponymous play
Written by Gabriel Sabourin
Directed by Alexis Durand Brault
In development
Grand nocturnal of the Parisian boulevards, for Georges Feydeau, 56 years old, morning starts in the late afternoon. Yet unaware of his downslope, slowly slipping into syphilitic madness, he insists on living vigorously, insolently intoxicating himself, therefore honouring his renowned nickname “Prince of the boulevards”.
But his memory is slowly failing him. His ex-wife arrives without warning, his son – a banker – is profoundly disturbed and mister’s maid stops responding to his romantic proposals. George tries to keep a cool head in this daily struggle. He appeals Sicard, a copyist, to help him put on paper his last eccentricity: write a film like Charlie Chaplin would.
His whole world is unleashed, revealing a rather sad personal life, inspiration for his comic theater. He will fight to keep his flamboyance despite all the surrounding hazards, embodying one of those pathetic vaudeville.
Until his trip off to country, he was told. They will drive up to an asylum.
Poor George
Based on the novel "Poor George " by Paula Fox
Written and directed by Claire Devers
In funding
One evening, George surprises a young teenager who broke into his home: Ernest. He didn’t’ steal anything, he simply wander around the house. George sees this kid a “life project” that could finally live up to its aspirations. Ernest, poor and illiterate, just met the one who can save him.
George is Ernest’s luck! And Ernest, George’s luck!
But excitement outweighed caution. And after a gunshot blast, all love, family, friendship and neighbourhood relationships blow up, resetting the order of things. Maybe not better, but more sincere and human.
Cocktail
(FF - French)
Written by Catherine Léger
In development
Cocktail, a romantic comedy, tells the story of Eve (30), an intervention-expert working at an eating disorder clinic (who doesn’t believe in psychotherapy). After miscalculating her cocktail of recreational psychotropics, Eve’s overwhelming love for humanity drives her to interrupt her best friend Philippe’s wedding by proposing to him. Philippe, who has always loved Eve, leaves his fiancee at the altar. The problem is that Eve is not at all in love with Philippe, considering him more as a platonic friend. Counter to her naturally promiscuous, eternally unsatisfied ways, she tries to live up to her romantic gesture and moves in with Philippe. He’s a decent guy after all, and she’s not getting any younger. Maybe it’s time to conform.
Obviously, she won’t be able to. Even if it’s a good time to address her “affection-compulsion” and her bad drug habit, forcing the hand of destiny is perhaps not the idea of the century.
How can she become an adult and maybe even settle down while maintaining her self-appointed status as a rebel, anarchist and hedonist? She’ll figure it out, but not without collateral damage.