By Colin McGregor
Imagine a 6 minute, 21 second film made in Quebec by a filmmaker from Pointe-aux-Trembles… a film with no dialogue!
Terre Ancestrale, a tale about defending the environment, shot in a medieval, fairy-tale style, has circled the world several times over – representing the best videography our province has to offer.
Existing for 19 years, Fusion Film is an association of four skilled cinema adepts who have fallen in love with the art of making short movies.
Their website, fusionfilm.net, is full of short video presentations that will make you laugh, cry and reflect, sometimes all at the same time. The array of prizes that they have won is impressive. They have taken home not less than 160 awards and distinctions, including at the Festival du 7e art at Cannes, France. “We stopped counting” admits Philippe Falardeau.
“We’ve had several of our films travel widely. They travel more than we do. I’m proud to have made films with a social message,” says Jonathan Laplante with his characteristic sense of humor.
Terre Ancestrale also won the best social message film at the festival Cinéma Plan d’Ensemble in Chateauguay. According to its director, Gabriel Bissonnette, “Films with a social message reach people and touch their hearts more easily.” For Bissonnette, a founding member of Fusion Film who also edited the film, love of the seventh art came very young.
“When I was 8 or 9 I discovered movies,” he tells us. “There were video clubs. I would rent VHS cassettes. I must have bought the owner of the video club’s country chalet!”
When his adolescence began, he shot his first movies on a camera owned by his friend, Alexandre. At age 18 he got his own camera, and has never looked back.
Later on he would meet the other three founding members of Fusion Film: Philippe Falardeau (director, producer and treasurer); Jonathan Laplante (expert in video editing); and Annie Lecours (scriptwriter and organizer of film shoots). “Each one of us has their own strengths,” Laplante explains.
They filmed the story of Marc Campbell, a Pointe-aux-Trembles teenager. At 16, in 1837 during the Patriotes rebellion, young Marc showed great courage by helping Louis-Joseph Papineau, head of the Patriotes, escape arrest. They went through Pointe-aux-Trembles, on the extreme eastern point of the island of Montreal, en route for the United States.
The two films on Marc Campbell produced by Fusion Film are based on a book by Sylvie Brien, a Quebec author who specializes in youth literature. She read a two-line article in a local newspaper, says Falardeau, and researched a whole book out of it, 16 ans et Patriote, published in the Crypto Collection by Bayard Canada.
The film Papineau: l’exil d’un Patriote was presented at the 350th anniversary of Pointe-aux-Trembles. “It touched the community and the borough,” says Falardeau, a resident of the community, just like Bissonnette.
On the Fusion Film platform, Bissonnette and his colleagues show all sorts of films. But in 19 years none of them have had the impact of Terre Ancestrale.
It takes place in a forest clearing several hundred years ago. A man dressed in medieval style starts cutting a tree with an axe. With each stroke, money falls from a tree. A dreamlike woman grabs his arm, trying to hold him back. At the end, the man drops to the ground, riddled with remorse. He stops cutting and the axe disappears.
The photography and the music, combined with visual effects, are captivating. It is a cinematographic chef d’oeuvre. Gabriel Bissonnette is responsible for the directing and the editing. It reached so many people partly because there is no monologue, he believes.
The four members of Fusion Film don’t make a living from their short films. They work in marketing. But they satisfy their creative urges and their dreams thanks to Fusion Film. They share a love for video, still standing and stronger than ever.
“Video permits us to reach people and make them reflect,” Bissonnette underscores. He particularly loves science-fiction, but has also created short films in other genres, including comedy, horror, and fantasy. “Life isn’t always great. But even if a film is very dark from the beginning, I can insert something positive into it.”
With the relevant technology from video equipment to cellphones now commonplace, the tools of a filmmaker are much more accessible than when Bissonnette began his career. “There is so much video content available everywhere, and competition is fierce.”
But he has great hope for future generations. His advice to budding filmmakers? Even if it is tough to get financing, take up a camera. As they say in Quebec French, It is by forging that one becomes a blacksmith.
Bissonnette is very eloquent, with a piercing look in his eye, when he’s talking about film. He admits that you have to be a salesperson to succeed in contemporary Quebec cinema. “Being a director also means being a great entrepreneur. If you can’t sell your idea, even if you’re a great director, it’s difficult.”
So if you want to become a movie director one day, practice up on your sales talents!
Photos thanks to Fusion Film
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