After several nuanced portrait films of Quebec cultural figures, Simon Beaulieu, also a screenwriter, follows a trajectory that brings his work closer to the essay film. In addition to screening his films, the carte blanche we offer him showcases the diversity of his influences and the eclecticism of his tastes.
In the presence of Simon Beaulieu
The person who introduced happenings to Montreal, the Borduas of the Sixties. The leader of a generation, an artist who painted Montreal Canadiens players, a candidate for the Rhinoceros Party, someone who wore wigs, who stumbled down staircases at an exhibition opening just to draw attention, an artist who transformed his house into a work of art, a man who painted everywhere even on his kitchen cupboards, someone who liked to film himself, one of the most important representatives of Pop Art in Canada, a polemist, a performer, a tormented soul, a defender of the democratization of art. From home videos akin to a private diary, 8 mm, 16 mm, VHS, radio archives all the way to televisuals, no music, no narration, just a life, a glance in its rough state at an artist, that's all... A documentary on the life and work of the painter Serge Lemoyne.
Simon Beaulieu
A filmmaker and screenwriter, Simon Beaulieu has written and directed three feature-length documentaries exploring the issues of the artist’s engagement with society and the survival of Quebec culture: Lemoyne about the painter Serge Lemoyne in 2005, Godin about the writer and politician in 2011, as well as Miron: A Man Returned from Beyond the World in 2014, an exploratory documentary about Quebec poet Gaston Miron that screened at many international festivals. In 2019, he co-wrote the screenplay and dialogue for Maxime Giroux's The Great Darkened Days (La grande noirceur). That same year, he directed a fourth feature film, White Noise (Le fond de l'air), in which he explores the form of experimental essay to address the Anthropocene and the environmental crisis.
Photo: Frédérick Pelletier
