Creatives

Hugo Latulippe

Author, filmmaker and producer, Hugo Latulippe has been a well-known figure in Quebec documentary cinema for the past 25 years. After his studies in cinema, Hugo has travelled the world with Radio Canada's La Course destination monde. Received as "artist-resident" at the Culture and Experimentation Studio (Studio culture et expérimentation) of the National Film Board of Canada, Hugo has learned his profession from the masters and artisans of Quebec’s direct cinema.

Several of Hugo’s films have been selected in the most prestigious festivals and have won numerous distinctions in Quebec and around the world. In 2005, Hugo founded the Montreal-based documentary production company esperamos, whose TV, web and cinema projects focus on "the important social questions of our time".

From 2014 to 2019, Hugo has chaired the Documentary Network (Observatoire du Documentaire), which brings together the main professional associations and institutions that produce documentaries in Canada. Hugo has also served on several national and international juries and he occasionally teaches documentary cinema at INIS (Montreal) and various other colleges and universities. Hugo became a resident of Quebec’s Bas-Saint-Laurent region when he settled in Cacouna in 2017.

Productions

• The Gross Domestic Happiness Project

Stéphane Lahoud

After finishing his Cinema studies at Concordia University in 1998, and completing a year of studies in France, Stéphane Lahoud used the Kino evenings as a platform to present his first projects as director. But his interests soon lead him towards documentary making. As early as 2002, he co-founded the collective Les Lucioles, reuniting many engaged film-makers. Since then, he has directed and presented more than 30 shorts with a sociopolitical character in numerous festivals, using video as a tool for social transformation.

Productions

• Laurentian Objectives
• On the Ice Floe

Claudie Simard

Claudie Simard had worked for 10 years in journalism at CBC/ Radio-Canada before making the leap to independent production. Her first film, Resilience in Midwifery, was a finalist for the Prix Gémeaux in the category “Best documentary program or series: health, nature, science and the environment”. Throughout the filming of Resilience in Midwifery, Claudie documented her journey to create Premier film; a documentary podcast that traces the path between the first idea and the final distribution of her film, thus creating a conversation around documentary cinema in Quebec.

Productions

• Births of the Future
• Resilience in Midwifery

Guillaume Lévesque

Originally from the Matapedia Valley, Guillaume Lévesque is the son of a simple woodcutter. It is by watching the great men, manipulating the trees to cut them down, saw them, that Guillaume has forged an imagery. Very early in his process, he felt the need to express himself on his territory, the people that live there. Losing land (2005), is a documentary on the harmful impacts of the tourist industry of the Magdalen Islands. Gaspesia (2010), presents essays on the territory the relationship between the Gaspé and its inhabitants. Also inspired by the behavior of the human being at the end of life, Guillaume takes a look at old age by interviewing three elderly people in Before Winter (2008). It was at L'INIS in the winter of 2010, as a student in the documentary program that he created Ritual, a film that questions funeral rituals in transformation. In 2012, it presents A shoveling after the other, a tribute to the winter through the portrait of a village "pelleteux". In 2017 Guillaume offers Lawrence’s silence, a documentary portrait of singer-songwriter Lawrence Lepage; poet and man of territory who chose the silence of the forest rather than the spotlight of the scene.

Productions

• From the Sea to the Menu
• Gaspésie Seeks African Priest
• Seal à la Carte

Benoit Ouellet

A native of Rivière-du-Loup in Quebec’s Bas St-Laurent region, Benoit Ouellet made his first contact with cinematographic production at Rivière-du-Loup College. He then studied at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi for an interdisciplinary baccalaureate in arts with film profile and completed his bachelor's degree in cinema with a specialization in direction of photography at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).

Following his studies, Benoit built his professional experience at various film sets in addition to carrying out his own creative projects. Amongst other ventures, he has worked in corporate video productions, where his creativity and scriptwriting proposals stand out. After some of his films were presented at international festivals, Benoit returned to his hometown, Rivière-du-Loup, to practice his art there. In 2020, he founded Fanfare agence créative and has multiplied achievements in television and cinema, in addition to ensuring the DOP and the editing of several projects through this venture. Benoit’s most recent short film, L’amour, took his work to North America and Europe. As such, Benoit remains dedicated to his ongoing video projects, all while teaching at Rivière-du-Loup School of Cinema and Video Trades (École des métiers du cinéma et de la vidéo du Cégep de Rivière-du-Loup).

Productions

• Hotel Central
• And What does it Change?
• Cinéma d’ici

Martine Gignac

Martine Gignac graduated from the “L’Art du Montage” (“The Art of Montage/ Editing”) college program at the School of Cinema and Video Trades (ÉMCV). Equally a graduate of the Institute of Image and Sound (INIS), she has won the Louise-Spickler Excellence Fellowship for the Feature Film Writing program. She directed her first short fiction film “La Vocation”, winning the Quebec Audiovisual Training Network (RFAVQ) competition. The same year, she completed her first feature documentary "NOUS, les femmes qu’on ne sait pas voir". In addition to her professional career, Martine had been a nun in the Notre-Dame-du-Saint-Rosaire community for 9 years.

Productions

• The Praying

Étienne Denis

A native of Rivière-du-Loup, Étienne Denis has studied communication, scriptwriting and lighting before committing to a career behind the camera. Since 2011, he has worked as a lighting technician and gaffer on numerous fictional film sets in Montreal, including Plan B, Chien de garde, Faits Divers and La Chute de l’Empire américain. In 2019, Étienne returned to his native Lower St-Lawrence region in order to invest his experience and creative eye into regional productions, all while exploring the realization of various corporate and television projects.

After directing the magazine 40% that explores local distilleries, he and his acolyte Carl Langlais venture to discover the most dynamic performance halls in Eastern Quebec.

Productions

• Pestacle
• 40%

Mathieu Baer

Mathieu Baer has produced and directed everything from live comedy and variety shows to ground-breaking documentaries and original kids programming. Mat started out as a news journalist for SRC, Canada’s national public broadcaster. He then quickly evolved into a highly successful television producer and director. He has worked with several broadcasters and producers including Just For Laughs, HBO, CBC, Bell Media and NBC’s Seeso network.

His documentaries touch upon a wide variety of subjects from the state of the news in Canada to the difficulties of transitioning at a young age to mastery in art, architecture, classical music and being a chef. Mathieu writes, directs and produces in both French and English.

Julien Boisvert

Julien Boisvert is a graphic designer, videographer and a global justice activist. With a particular interest in the intersection of things, he studied video production at Concordia University (2006) and contemporary history at the Université du Québec à Montréal (2002). A recipient of three Québec Arts Council grants, this resident-by-adoption of Rimouski, a regional city located on the banks of a widening St-Lawrence River, has developed an approach that blurs boundaries between presumed binaries.

Julien's Sponsor a Wealthy Child project, winner of the Web Pitch at the RVCQ and noticed by international press, obscures fiction and documentary. It also combines humour with introspection and mixes media platforms to notable results. The short films that Julien directed and produced while member of the Les Lucioles collective, in combination with those he made within the Kino_Riki cell, confront dominant discourse from a candid perspective, with a playful tone.

Productions

• Overcoming Image
• Sponsor a Wealthy Child

Julie Gauthier

Julie Gauthier has been a scenarist of fiction material for many years. In the Summer of 2013, she directed Vidéodep, her first short, with Tapis Rouge Films. With collegial studies in Media Languages, she turned towards Literature at the University of Quebec in Rimouski. Her master’s in Literary Creation allowed her to explore literary adaptation while working on a monument of Quebec literature, Hubert Aquin’s Neige Noire. She organised the first Kino evenings in Rimouski, and hosted them for 5 years.

Productions

• Amazons
• Vidéodep

Jean-François Aubé

Born in Quebec City, Jean-Francois Aubé undertook university studies in philosophy, history and cinema, and he has thereafter directed several short films, all of which were broadcast in Quebec and European festivals. In 2007, Jean-Francois settled in Quebec’s Gaspésie region, where he founded his own production company and taught part-time in college. In 2010, the short film Des bruits des fourchettes won the audience price at the Festival Les Percéides, in addition to being selected for the Rendez-vous du cinema québécois tour. In 2012, he scripted and directed the tragic-political web series Motel Chevreuil, which was entirely produced in Gaspé. In 2013, Jean-Francois directed the feature-length documentary Poussière sur la ville, which was filmed in Senegal (RVCQ 2014).In 2014, he published his first collection of short stories, Les yeux de la Nation, at Éditions Sémaphore, in addition to occasionally publishing short stories in the XYZ, La revue de la nouvelle magazine. His first novel will be released in the fall of 2020, at Lévesque. He is currently working on a play.

Productions

• The Land of Shipwrecks