My Mother's Letters
"The image is like a musical score that the sound editor must study, practice, cut, and interpret. They modulate, arrange, and orchestrate various soundscapes to achieve the desired emotional effect." This is how sound editor and designer Claude Beaugrand described his craft in a poignant essay published in 24 images magazine in 1992. Both a craftsman and an artist, he would immerse himself in the directors' works he collaborated on, seeking, as he said, the "heart of the film."
Our tribute to Claude Beaugrand, who passed away on October 8, 2023, celebrates his talent and versatility, emphasizing his unique non-naturalistic approach to sound design, from La plante humaine by Pierre Hébert to Maurice Richard by Charles Binamé. The tribute also highlights two of his rarely seen short films, Clichés et ramasse-miettes and Peines perdues, both brilliant reflections on image and sound.
Director Serge Giguère got his hands on a hundred letters written by his mother at the turn of the 1950s. While these letters recount the difficult, but often comical, daily life of a working-class family of sixteen children, Serge Giguère undertakes to cobble together his own memories to bring out an array of eclectic moments, like an echo of his mother who sews, upholster and invents her life from day to day. Through heartfelt conversations with his daughter and interviews with his surviving siblings, My Mother’s Letters probes what is most intimate in the heart of each of us: maternal love lived, sought after, and always questioned.
Serge Giguère
Resolutely humanist, Serge Giguère’s cinema offers intimate journeys where reality and imagination intertwine to open up the secret dimension that connects us to one another. He was the recipient of the Governor General’s Award (2008) and the Albert-Tessier Award (2021). Starting as an assistant cameraman for master documentarians Pierre Perrault and Arthur Lamothe, he then founded Les films d’aventures sociales du Québec in 1974 with Robert Tremblay and they co-directed three films together, including Belle famille (1978). Giguère then joined forces with Sylvie Van Brabant to create Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc in 1984, where he directed most of his films, including Oscar Thiffault, The King of Drums and My Mother’s Letters. Driven By Dreams (2007) (Special Jury Award Best Canadian Documentary, Hot Docs 2007) along with Finding MacPherson (2015) both earned a Jutra Award for Best Quebec Documentary. Serge Giguère is one of Quebec’s most important documentary filmmakers of the last few decades.
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L'univers sonore de Claude Beaugrand vu par Olivier Calvert
À titre de monteur sonore, Olivier Calvert a travaillé aux côtés du regretté Claude Beaugrand pour les films Maurice Richard, Soie, Yellowknife et Embrasse-moi comme tu m’aimes, pour ne nommer que ceux-là. Nous l’avons invité à plonger dans ses souvenirs de sa collaboration avec Claude Beaugrand, qui s’est éteint le 8 octobre 2023.
