La naissance d'une messe
In two steps, we celebrate the memory of the versatile craftsman and great director that was André Brassard. In the moving documentary Notre été avec André, director Claude Fournier and producer Marie-José Raymond visit Brassard, immobilized by a stroke, to ask him to tell his story. The film will be preceded by Françoise Durocher, Waitress, Brassard's first film. Then, in La naissance d'une messe, Jean-Claude Coulbois turns his camera towards the director to expose his work with the actors of Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d'été, by Michel Tremblay.
The film follows the actors' journey towards the moment, each time singular, where the text merges with the bodies to become its scenic truth.
Jean-Claude Coulbois
Born in Paris, Jean-Claude Coulbois has been living and working in Quebec since 1968. Alternating between editing (Higelin, Lettre à mon père, Cap tournante) and directing, he embarked from 1995 on a series of films questioning various aspects of Quebec culture through the links between theater and societal evolution. This production explores different forms of direct cinema: from the short film Joyeux Noël, Julie (1997) to the feature documentary* Un Miroir sur la scène* (1997), a two-part retrospective look at the theatrical emergence in Quebec. Subsequently, he explores Le Territoire du comédien (1999) before following the creative process experienced by a group of actors during rehearsals for a text from Michel Tremblay directed by André Brassard, through a documentary chronicle, La Naissance d'une messe (2002). He also directed a documentary on Robert Gravel, Mort subite d'un homme-théâtre, in 2012, and the third installment of the Un Miroir sur la scène trilogy, Nous autres, les autres, in 2016.
