On Wednesday, Marie-Hélène Viens and Philippe Lupien, as well as around ten members of the team from their first feature film, You are not alone, were busy around Marianne Fortier and Pier-Luc Funk, gathered to the first time on the big screen. There was so little space in the room at the Falcon motel in Brossard that some had to settle in the spa.
On this 22nd day of filming, we were shooting the scene where Rita (Fortier) and Léo (Funk), who have just met, wake up under a pile of coats after spending the night with Rita’s friends in a motel room. in Rimouski.
“The beautiful thing about their relationship is that they move forward with small missteps,” confides Pier-Luc Funk. Leo is going through a sad time; he works nights, doesn’t want to see anyone, doesn’t feel like going out. He’s all alone at home, but Rita is going to give him the little kick he needs to go out because he thinks she’s worth it. Leo and Rita ask themselves the same questions, share the same awareness of certain things; everyone is therefore happy to meet someone who understands them. »
“Rita is luminous,” continues Marianne Fortier, “who shares great chemistry with her playing partner. She had a beautiful childhood, a united family, but she has difficulty projecting herself into the future, leading a life of adult. Leo and Rita are not equipped with great self-confidence; Everyone will wonder if the other is experiencing the same kind of dizziness in front of them. It is the solitude that both experience in different contexts that will unite them. »
Co-writers and co-directors of three tender and offbeat short films (Bernard the Great, Amen and We are the freak show), Marie-Hélène Viens and Philippe Lupien, who met in the early 2000s, once again wanted to combine their talents. Both natives of Lanaudière and from a modest background, they reveal that there is a little of themselves in You are not alone.
Even though they set the story in an anonymous suburb reminiscent of the one where they grew up, the filmmakers had fun with the codes of sentimental comedy and science fiction. In fact, the budding romance between Rita and Léo will be jeopardized by the presence of John (François Papineau). A seemingly benevolent taxi driver, John is an alien looking for human beings and the morose Leo particularly interests him.
“Basically, aliens are an allegory about solitude,” explains Marie-Hélène Viens. We wanted to talk about solitude and draw a parallel with the question of whether we human beings are really alone in the universe. Much has been read about this; a bit like in all beliefs, there is a lot of loneliness among people who are in the UFO world, who talk about extraterrestrials, who say they have encountered them. It’s something that really spoke to us a lot. »
“It seems that our ideas arrive in spite of us,” says Philippe Lupien. Perhaps it’s because there are two of us that we mix genres. For us, it’s not so unusual because we’re trying to ground the story in rules and a fairly precise universe. In this case, it’s very lo-fi and relatively realistic in the sense that we are really on a human level and not in spaceships. »
Very happy and pampered by the filming of their first feature film, even if it lasted 24 days rather than 28 due to budgetary constraints, Marie-Hélène Viens and Philippe Lupien cannot ignore the generosity of the actors and craftsmen of the film: “The team is incredible,” says the director. Everyone gives 150%. The good mood remains despite the November rain, the cold, and the night shoots. It was quite intense. »
Sharing the disappointment of the Quebec Media Production Association (AQPM) in the face of the Liberal government’s broken promise to increase Telefilm Canada’s budget to reach a sustainable increase of $50 million per year, Fanny-Laure Malo, who produced the film with Annie-Claude Quirion for La Boîte à Fanny, cannot hide his concern about the future of Quebec cinema.
“There is a weakening of the production environment which is really worrying. With COVID aid having disappeared, producers find themselves with substantially higher budgets on which they are taking more and more risks. We bust our budgets on the arm of our personal investments in the film. Everyone works twice as hard, it’s really beautiful to see the solidarity of the teams who understand the reality in which we find ourselves. We have been saying it for years, but here we see that we really need to sustain Telefilm Canada’s budget,” concludes the producer.
