Xavier Dolan's next feature amongst 11 French films greenlit by Telefilm Canada

Quebec wunderkid Xavier Dolan will finally have a grown-up budget of approximately $C8 million for his third feature, Lawrence Anyways, after making a splashy international debut with the $800,000 I Killed My Mother and his $1.7 million sophomore outing this year, Heartbeats, according to Carole Mondello, Dolan’s line producer of all three pictures.

Lawrence Anyways marks the first time TFC, the federal funder, has invested in one of his productions, Mondello told Screen; it is a Canada-France co-production. TFC declined to provide investment figures for this film or the 10 other French-language films it greenlit yesterday.

Lawrence Anyways, a transgender love story which takes place over 10 years and four seasons — will be produced by Barney’s Version co-producer Lyse Lafontaine, who also worked with the late Quebec ‘enfant terrible’ Jean-Claude Lauzon (Leolo) in the ’90s. She was not available for comment.

Mondello says Lawrence Anyways will shoot in “two blocks” due to its seasonal nature, with the winter/spring sequences tentatively scheduled for the end of February 2011 (until mid-April) and the summer/fall sequences shot in September/October—which leaves plenty of time to have it ready for the Cannes extravagaznza, where Dolan won three awards in 2009 for I Killed My Mother, including the SADC Prize at the Director’s Fortnight.

Telefilm Canada is delighted to announce that 11 feature films, two of which are Canadian majority coproductions, can move forward thanks to various production programs under Telefilm Canada’s Canada Feature Film Fund.

“We are proud to support experienced teams and renowned, talented filmmakers as well as promising new talent,” said Carolle Brabant, Executive Director of Telefilm Canada, in a release.

Michel Pradier, Director of Project Financing at Telefilm Canada, added that he is “pleased”  with the “consistency in the number of Canada-majority coproductions submitted to us.”

The French-language projects selected for the first round of 2011-2012 TFC financing under the Canada Feature Film Fund are:

Esimésac–Drama/fantasy produced by Loraine Richard and Luc Martineau (Cité-Amérique), written by Fred Pellerin and directed by Luc Picard. Esimésac tells the story of a man who encourages the residents of St-Élie de Caxton to take part in a community garden project, but plans go awry and  they find their larders empty come winter.

Inch’Allah– Canada-France coproduction (majority Canadian). Drama produced by Luc Déry and Kim McCraw (micro_scope; also producers of Incendies), and written and directed by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette. In a makeshift street clinic in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, Chloé, a young obstetrician from Quebec working under the supervision of a French doctor, Michaël, helps pregnant women. Chloé’s encounter with many people and their lives takes her on an adventure into territories of intimacy as well as landscape.  

Komona – Drama produced by Pierre Even and Marie-Claude Poulin and written and directed by Kim Nguyen. In Africa, 14-year-old Komona is expecting a child. For two years, she has been waging war with a Kalashnikov, forced to fight with a rebel army. The only person who helps and listens to her is the Magician, a 15-year-old boy who loves telling stories and collecting books. As the months pass, Komona and the Magician fall in love. Just when they think they are finally free of the war’s hold on them, fate decides otherwise. 

Laurence Anyways – Canada-France coproduction (majority Canadian). Drama co-produced by Lyse Lafontaine (Lyla Films), Nathanaël Karmitz and Charles Gillibert (MK2), and written and directed by Xavier Dolan. Laurence Anyways tells the story of impossible love. On the day of his 30th birthday, Laurence, who is in love with Fred, tells Fred—after much obscure circling around the subject—that he wants to become a woman.

Le Torrent – Drama produced by Jacques Blain and Sylvain Corbeil (Lusio Films), written and directed by Simon Lavoie, and based on the renowned novel by Anne Hébert. 1922, rural Quebec. Claudine, a young single mother who has been ostracized by her family, lives on an isolated farm where she raises her son in the strictest religious observance. She wants her “bastard” son to eventually become a priest, hoping thus to be rehabilitated in the eyes of her community. One day, upon returning from school, François, now a young man, defies his mother’s authority for the first time. She subsequently strikes him so hard on the head that he becomes deaf. 

Liverpool – Romantic comedy produced by Rogier Frappier and Luc Vandal (Max Films), and written and directed by Manon Briand. A coat-check clerk at a bar decides to return an unclaimed coat to its owner, but suddenly finds herself caught up in a criminal matter. One of the bar’s regulars, who has long been secretly in love with her, agrees to risk his life in order to help her.

Magasin Des Suicides –France-Canada coproduction (majority France). Animation co-produced by André Rouleau (Caramel Films), Gilles Podesta (Diabolo Films) and Thomas Langmann (La Petite Reine), and written and directed by Patrice Leconte. Imagine a store that, for the past 10 generations, has been selling all possible items that one might need to commit suicide. This little family business thrives in an atmosphere marked by sadness and melancholy until the awful day when a ruthless enemy appears.

Pee Wee – Family film, regional coproduction, produced by Christian Larouche (Christal Films Production) and Valérie Bissonnette (Vélocité International), written by Emmanuel Joly, Martin Bouchard and Jean-Sébastien Poirier, and directed by Éric Tessier. Winter has come around once again and with it a new hockey season. A group of 11- and 12-year-old boys, living in a small Quebec village, get ready to play the most important hockey season of their lives. 

Projet Omerta – Crime thriller, produced by Denise Robert and Daniel Louis (Cinémaginaire), and written and directed by Luc Dionne. Louise Savard, a “professional informant” and former double agent, infiltrates Montreal’s criminal underworld. Her task: to win the trust of Jack Leblanc, a drug trafficker well known to the police. Newly released from prison, Leblanc joins up with the Italian Mafia and sets up a con aimed at stealing the gold stored at the Central Bank of Canada. 

Roche Papier Ciseaux – Suspense, produced by Christine Falco and Sandra-Dalhie Goyer (Les Films Camera Oscura), written by André Guiluni and Yan Lanouette-Turgeon, and directed by Yan Lanouette-Turgeon. A young Native man leaves his reservation for Montréal and for what he hopes will be a brighter future. Along the way, he meets a former criminal now forced to do odd jobs. An old Italian man takes part in a game of Russian roulette with a pharmaceutical flavour in the hope of winning enough money to fulfill his dying wife’s last wish. 

Tout ce que tu possèdes –Drama produced by Bernadette Payeur (Corporation ACPAV), and written and directed by Bernard Émond. A man trying to break with his past must decide whether to renounce a large inheritance because it is made up of ill-gotten gains. At the same time, he meets his teenage daughter, whose mother he had left when she was pregnant.