Philippe Falardeau
Philippe Falardeau
Philippe Falardeauis a Canadian film director and screenwriter...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionDirector
CountryCanada
oscars stuff used
I don't like ostentatious galas and stuff like that, but if you get to the Oscars, you'd better get used to it and you'd better enjoy it.
apart facing fixing huge trying
When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them.
comparing films less
In Quebec, we're less inhibited artistically, culturally, politically. We're less focused on box office and comparing our films to the American films.
city concerns issue province quebec subject tackle time
In the province of Quebec where I come from, we speak French, and the only cosmopolitan city is Montreal. Every time we tackle the subject of immigration and racial tension, it's an issue that concerns Montreal.
funny keen
I'm not too keen on jokes that are one-liners. I want the situation to be funny.
teacher children teaching
The teacher will never be a parent. The parents are the parents. But they have to engage in some sort of active education beyond just teaching mathematics and French and English because the kids spend more time there than they do with their parents at that age. We have to accept that other adults will be part of our children's education and they will have bad teachers. That's going to happen.
teacher thinking trying
Now I realize that I have to let everyone take what they have to take from the film. No matter what I think about the film, it becomes a little irrelevant. I think I would say that the film is trying to show us that - and I spoke about that earlier - we have to let the teachers invest in their own classroom. There's no use in trying to control everything. Education is fundamental.
stars military thinking
We have a conservative government that only thinks in terms of efficiency. They are spending a lot of money on military expenses and less and less on culture. My position is that culture can actually be economically viable. When I make a film, the film costs $3 million. Now, in Quebec, it grossed $3.5 million, which is a small film. It's not a comedy. There are no stars in it. And, it still grosses $3.5 million. That's just in Quebec.
writing political done
I'm writing a political comedy that takes place in Canada in Quebec. It's funny. Saying political comedy is a little redundant but it's a first. I've never done any comedy per se.
suicide thinking grieving
I didn't want the film to be didactic, and this is tough because if you look at the list of issues, you have immigration, the education system, you have the grieving, you have suicide. I think what saved me were two things. I tried to do everything with some level of restraint and let the spectator make up his own mind.
children real school
It's like a laboratory, a micro-society of real life, so it didn't look odd to talk about bureaucracy. In the school, in the class, there are already a lot of children from different ethnic backgrounds so the reality is there. I don't have to shove it in people's face. It's just there and it's normal.
grateful thinking israel
If you look at the Oscars and look at the Best Foreign Language series, you see that the films are coming from everywhere - from Quebec, Israel, Poland, and Belgium. It's not the usual French, German, etc. This category is opening up to socially engaged and political films. I think we're going to see a cross over to the main categories also. It's part of this global environment now and I'm grateful that the Academy is having this window on world cinema.
optimistic stories united-states
I'm pretty optimistic that in the future these kind of films will also be part of the main categories, perhaps not in a foreign language, but certainly more socially and politically engaged films, or films that will happen where the story takes place outside the United States.
stars goal hollywood
The irony is I did an intimate film in France with no stars and that got me to Hollywood. It got me to the Oscars. If I had tried to imitate the Americans or the Hollywood movies with a commercial recipe, I'd never have gotten to Hollywood. Although, it was not my goal in any way, and I never thought there was any connection between Monsieur Lazhar and the Oscars.