The new novel by author and anchor Michel Jean, Qimmik, will be brought to the big screen. It is Anik Jean who will put into images this story which tells a little-known part of the history of the Inuit of Quebec.
“I was overwhelmed by this book,” confides the director in a telephone interview with La Presse. Two short hours were enough for her to devour Michel Jean’s novel, published last month by Libre Expression.
“When I read it, I immediately knew that I wanted to make a film,” continues the woman whose talent as a filmmaker was revealed last summer with the drama My Mother’s Men.
Michel Jean and Anik Jean – who are not related – became friends in recent years through meetings at book fairs. While he was promoting Kukum, she was there to present her children’s books, including Nathan in the Land of Pirates. “We always told ourselves that it would be fun, one day, to work together, but we didn’t really know exactly what,” says Anik Jean.
It will ultimately be on the adaptation of Qimmik, since Michel Jean will sign the screenplay. At the heart of this story: the forced settlement of Inuit in the territory of Nunavik in the 1960s and 1970s. An episode marked by the massive slaughter of Nordic sled dogs by the police authorities. Qimmik – pronounced “himmik” – actually means “dog” in Inuktitut.
“It’s a tragedy that the Inuit have experienced. It’s important to tell it,” believes Anik Jean.
She finds it remarkable how Michel Jean “passes important messages” through a fictional story.
Because Qimmik is also a “beautiful love story”, underlines the director, who describes herself as a “finished romantic”.
She is convinced that this project has the potential to touch many people, as did her previous feature film, based on a screenplay by Maryse Latendresse, My Mother’s Men.
“What’s most important to me is being able to captivate people, bring them into my world and have them come out with an experience that made them think. »
“Qimmik tells the story of a tragedy that marked the Inuit people. It is also a story shot through with light. It is important that as many people as possible know this story, because it is part of the recent history of Quebec. I feel lucky and pampered that Anik chose to bring it to the big screen,” said Michel Jean, for his part, in a press release.
When is the film expected to start shooting? “Within two years,” answers Anik Jean, referring to the fact that the project is still embryonic and that a lot of work remains to be done.
It will all start this Wednesday with a first writing session.
Then, the director plans to go numerous times to Northern Quebec, to Kuujjuarapik, where part of the filming will take place. “I want to immerse myself in Inuit culture. […] I want to go and live with the community for a while. I want to learn the language too,” she says.
She is also keen to involve people from indigenous communities in the project, which will also be filmed in Sept-Îles and Montreal.
The feature film, which will be produced by PaNik Fiction, a company founded by Anik Jean, her husband, Patrick Huard, and Attraction, does not have a release date at the moment.
