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DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY
Richard Brouillette


Richard
                  Brouillette
Credit: Aïda Maigre-Touchet
Richard Brouillette is a film producer, director, editor and programmer. Starting as a film critic for the Montréal weekly, Voir, he then worked for Québec's top independent distribution company, Cinéma Libre (1989-1999), which has since folded. In 1993, he founded the artist-run center La Casa Obscura, a multi-disciplinary exhibition space, where he still runs a weekly cine-club called Les projections libérantes, for which he is also the projectionist.

He produced and directed Too Much Is Enough (doc., 111 min., 1995) for which he has won the prestigious M. Joan Chalmers Award (Best Canadian Documentary), in 1996; Carpe diem (essay, 5 min., 1995), and Encirclement – Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy (doc., 160 min., 2008), for which he won six awards including the prestigious Robert and Frances Flaherty Grand Prize of the 2009 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and Grand Prize La Poste Suisse of the 2009 Visions du réel festival. More recently, he produced and directed Prends garde à la douceur des choses (essay, 2 min., 2014) and Oncle Bernard – A Counter-Lesson in Economics (doc., 79 min., 2015), which won the La Vague Award for Best Documentary of the 2015 FICFA. He also took part in the collective film St-Henri, the 26th of August (doc., 87 min, 2011).

He has also produced six feature length films: Tree with Severed Branches, by Pascale Ferland (doc., 81 min. 2005), Barbers – A Men’s Story, by Claude Demers (doc., 82 min., 2006), Les désœuvrés, by René Bail (fiction, 72 min. 1959-2007), Adagio for a Biker, by Pascale Ferland (doc., 90 min., 2008), Ladies in Blue, by Claude Demers (doc., 90 min., 2009), and Chantier, by René Bail (doc., 75 min., 1957-2015). He is currently producing the feature length documentary The Hungry Half, directed by Mathieu Roy (for which Brouillette furthermore wrote the script). Also, he has acted as a consulting producer on a number of documentary projects, including Les mers amères, by Félix Lamarche (currently in postproduction).

Richard Brouillette has always been very active in Québec’s independent film community, participating in militant actions and devoting himself to the cause of artist-run centers. Since 1993, he has also sat on the Boards of various organizations, including Main Film (2002-2015). He is currently part of the Boards of Cinema Politica, and l’Amicale de la culture indépendante, the coop that manages Casa Obscura.

In 2014 he won the CALQ Award for Best artist of the year in Mauricie.

Filmography

Oncle Bernard – A Counter-Lesson in Economics
documentary, 2015, 79 min., 16mm / HD, B&W, Québec-Catalunya
La Vague Award for Best Documentary, FICFA 2015

Official selection, FIDMarseille (Marseille, France), 2015
Official selection, Viennale (Vienna, Austria), 2015
Official selection, FIFF (Tübingen-Stuttgart, Germany), 2015
Official selection, Filmer à tout prix (Brussels, Belgium), 2015
Official selection, CPH:DOX (Copenhagen, Denmark), 2015
Official selection, RIDM (Montréal, Canada), 2015
Official selection, FICFA (Moncton, Canada), 2015
Official selection, Festival Dei Popoli (Florence, Italy), 2015
Official selection, IFF Rotterdam (Rotterdam, Netherlands), 2016
Official selection, Rencontres Cinéma de Manosque (Manosque, France), 2016
Official selection, Docs Against Gravity (Warsaw, Poland), 2016

Prends garde à la douceur des choses
(commissioned by Visions du réel)
essay, 2014, 2 min., HD, colour, Québec
Official selection, Visions du réel (Nyon, Suisse), 2014
A sequence shot filmed in L’Avenir, Québec, that is thought-provoking... A film made in the context of Traces du futur (filmmakers that were selected at Visions du Réel in the past twenty editions celebrate the Festival's anniversary in 2014 by each making a short film in which they expose their view of the future).

St-Henri, the 26th of August
(collective film under the direction of Shannon Walsh)
documentary, 2011, 87 min., HD, colour, Québec
Official selection, Hot Docs (Toronto, Canada), 2011
Official selection, Durban International Film Festival (Durban,Sputh Africa), 2011
Official selection, Festival international du film de Beijing (Beijing, China), 2012
Official selection, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (Durham, USA), 2012
Official selection, Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (Montréal, Canada), 2012
A collaborative work made in the spirit of cinéma-vérité, St-Henri, the 26th of August was directed by Shannon Walsh and 16 fellow documentary filmmakers. Chronicling life in a former working-class Montreal neighbourhood over a 24-hour period, St-Henri, the 26th of August follows several compelling stories and characters. The film is an homage to the 1962 Hubert Aquin classic À Saint-Henri le cinq septembre.

Encirclement – Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy
documentary, 2008, 160 min., 16 mm/HD, B&W, Québec
Robert et Frances Flaherty Grand Prize, Yamagata IDFF 2009
La Poste Suisse Grand Prize, Visions du réel 2009
Johnnie Walker Audience Award for Best Feature Film, IndieLisboa 2009
Pierre et Yolande Perrault Award for Best First or Second Documentary, RVCQ 2009
La Vague Award for Best Documentary (ex aequo), FICFA 2009
Special Jury Mention for the Amnesty International Award, IndieLisboa 2009

Official selection, Berlinale, Forum section (Berlin, Germany), 2009
Official selection, Visions du réel (Nyon, Switzerland), 2009
Official selection, Yamagata IDFF (Yamagata, Japan), 2009
Official selection, Viennale (Vienna, Austria), 2009
Official selection, Hot Docs (Toronto, Canada), 2009
Official selection, BAFICI (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2009
Official selection, IndieLisboa (Lisbon, Portugal), 2009
Official selection, IFF Bratislava (Bratislava, Slovakia), 2009
Official selection, Mostra Internacional de Cinema (São Paulo, Brasil), 2009
Official selection, Ghent International Film Festival (Ghent, Belgium), 2009
Official selection, CPH:DOX (Copenhagen, Denmark), 2009
Official selection, Documenta Madrid (Madrid, Spain), 2009
Official selection, Oslo Internasjonale Film Festival (Oslo, Norway), 2009
Official selection, Jihlava IDFF (Jihlava, Czech Republic), 2009
Official selection, Vancouver International Film Festival (Vancouver, Canada), 2009
Official selection, Festival do Rio (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil), 2009
Official selection, Leeds International Film Festival (Leeds, UK), 2009
Official selection, Cork Film Festival (Cork, Ireland), 2009
Official selection, Spokane International Film Festival (Spokane, USA), 2010
Official selection, Planet Doc Review, (Warsaw, Poland), 2010
Official selection, Ronda International Film Festival (Ronda, Spain), 2010
Official selection, FIFF (Tübingen-Stuttgart, Germany), 2009
Official selection, This Human World (Vienna, Austria), 2009
Official selection, À nous de voir (Oullins, France), 2009
Official selection, FCIU (Montevideo, Uruguay), 2009
Official selection, FICFA (Moncton, Canada), 2009
Official selection, Festival O.F.N.I. (Poitiers, France), 2009
Official selection, Festival de cinéma des trois Amériques (Québec, Canada), 2009
Official selection, Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (Montréal, Canada), 2009
Official selection, RIDM (Montréal, Canada), 2008

Drawing upon the thinking and analyses of renowned intellectuals, this documentary sketches a portrait of neo-liberal ideology and examines the various mechanisms used to impose its dictates throughout the world. Neo-liberalism’s one-size-fits-all dogmas are well known: deregulation, reducing the role of the State, privatization, limiting inflation rather than unemployment, etc. In other words, depoliticizing the economy and putting it into the hands of the financial class. And these dogmas are gradually settling into our consciousness because they’re being broadcast across a vast and pervasive network of propaganda. But behind the ideological smokescreen, behind the neat concepts of natural order and the harmony of interests in a free market, beyond the panacea of the "invisible hand," what is really going on?

Too Much Is Enough
documentary, 1995, 111 min., 16mm, colour and B&W
Joan Chalmers Award, for Best Canadian Documentary, 1996

Official selection, Arsenals Film Festival, Riga, Latvia, 1996
Official selection, Figuera da Foz Film Festival, Portugal, 1996
Official selection, Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, 1995
Too Much Is Enough gives voice to Gilles Groulx (1931-1994), a.k.a. "le lynx inquiet", one of Québec's most outsanding and original filmmakers – and certainly the most politicized and censored. Tragically, Groulx's career was cut short in 1981 after he suffered a head trauma in an automobile accident that inexorably isolated him from his peers. Groulx was soon forgotten. Between 1989 and 1994, Richard Brouillette met regularly with Gilles Groulx, recording the filmmaker's thoughts on his work and life. The film combines sober images from these sessions with excerpts from Groulx's films and some of his paintings, as well as archival footage.

Carpe Diem
(Segment of the feature length collective Un film de cinéastes)
essay, 1995, 5 min., 16mm, B&W
Opening night film, Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, 1995
Official selection, Visions du réel, Nyon, Switzerland, 1995
"One can't write a film, it has to be seized."

A short manifesto, inspired by Dziga Vertov (We) and Gilles Groulx (Propos sur la scénarisation).



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