For the dreamers!

“Ce qui fait la nuit en nous peut laisser en nous les étoiles.” - Victor Hugo

The Montreal director Sophie Goyette recently contributed an article À ceux qui rêvent to the Cinéastes invités section on the newly revamped 24 Images website. In trying to answer the question of what is the role of creativity and self-expression in contemporary filmmaking Goyette proposes a typically personal and thoughtful response which acknowledges the nervousness and audacity associated with any creative act but also the necessity and lyricism that drives them.

Since her last short-film Goyette has been developing three different projects. After the rural landscapes of La Ronde and the aerial perspective of Le future proche, Goyette’s next project will feature another natural element: water. The subject of oceanography has such rich cinematic potential and would be conducive to exploring one of the recurring characteristic of her films: that of a person who leaves society to grapple with an emotional crisis. Goyette nicely meditates on this project,

“I would like James Cameron to tell me in detail about his recent expedition in the Deepsea Challenger submarine, which allowed him to be the first to explore the deepest territory underwater … In exchange I can tell him about my childhood amazement of discovering and rewatching La Grenouille et la Baleine and its immersive capturing of marine life sounds, which is the first siren towards this hidden and mysterious world.”

Another one of Goyette's project is an independent documentary where she plans to take a group of people who have mental illnesses to visit the Spanish mountains. Some themes that it would explore include travel and self-exploration. 

One of the joys and advantages of Canadian cinema is its history and diversity where it's possible to discover such rich ambitions and visions. Goyette’s cinema and her future projects is just one particular example. But Québec in general offers many other examples especially since their films have some trouble crossing over to English Canada. Some of these films are by directors that include Gilles Carles, Claude Jutra, Michel Brault, Pierre Pierrault, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, Robert Morrin, and Rafaël Øuellet. As well there is Jean-Claude Lauzon's whose classic Léolo will be playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Sunday, January 26 at 7:00PM and which will be introduced by David Pike, the author of the great new book At the Heart of the World: Canadian Cinema since the 1980s. For the striving of a local film culture there needs to be the support of filmmakers that take risks and challenge themselves, and there should also be film writers there to follow behind them.