Roy went to great lengths to promote this film, giving several press interviews and appearing talk shows. During the filming stage nobody was prepared to say much about the story, but he had plenty to say on the film’s release.
Screenshots are from Tout le monde en parle, Écran Libre, Musique Plus, Michel Jasmin, Flash (Festival du nouveau cinema), and the website of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Film Festival

Métro : Do you think it’s better to forget bad memories or, on the other hand, are these the ones that make us what we are?

Roy : I think that nature has made us like that. It’s a reflex protection system. The reptilian part of the brain takes control. And the reptilian brain has a memory, but it doesn’t understand language, so it’s not able to express it. But I think that up to a point we can and must grow as a result of our suffering. I don’t think we can avoid emerging stronger having accepted reality, our reality. By confronting who we are.

Métro : After shooting is finished and when the film is about to come out, are you nervous to see how well it will be greeted  or are you uninvolved?

Roy : A little of both. As far as I’m concerned, it’s already a success. I’m happy to have made this film. I’m happy with the result and to have met the people I’ve met on the shoot. I’m happy with the whole thing. But also, because of this, it means more to me. So yes, at the time, you want it to be seen, you want it to work.

Leclerc : I tried to dig a little deeper by using collective memory. Our lives didn’t begin with Champlain founding Quebec; it goes back way before that.  That’s why we find in the film the memory of the American Indian, the deer, indeed the memory of all living beings. […. ]

Roy : During filming we tried to examine if this was possible and were led to believe that it was. We enquired into the collective subconscious, global intelligence, about research done on consciousness, like the story of the young girl who had the memories of a Japanese soldier killed in World War I. It’s amazing, but just about believable … as long as you keep an open mind.”

[ … ]

Roy : I have an evolutionist’s outlook, and I think it’s important to remember now and again where we come from, because if we want to evolve we have to consider our past actions.

[ … ]

For Roy Dupuis, tackling the character of Alexandre proved to be the sort of complex challenge that he likes:

Roy : Alexandre remembers all the technical aspects of his life, but he has lost all his emotional memory, giving rise to feelings of guilt towards his nearest and dearest; he remembers being married but doesn’t recognise his wife. At the beginning I had to find the naivety, fragility, vulnerability of someone who feels like a child while being perceived as an adult.

[….]
Roy : As far as I’m concerned, the genre isn’t important – it’s the story that interests me. Even though it deals with fantasy, Mémoires affectives remains an artistic film. I love cinema and this film is nothing like what you see on TV – everything about the photography and the screenplay is cinematographic.

Roy : The film deals with father-son relationships, a man trying to find himself, which is the case with a lot of men these days, but also with the violence of some men. Certainly the character is similar to me. He is between a child and an adult, fun-loving, close to nature, sporty.

Roy : For me, a vision is a way of telling a story. Francis has his own way. I can’t identify exactly what it is, and I don’t like putting people in boxes, but Francis has his own style.
Interviewer: Is this not normal?
Roy : It should be normal … but there are established formulae in the trade that decide if one film is likely to do better at the box-office than another, and often, that’s where it ends. Because of the money, people are scared of those who go a bit outside this formula. But it shouldn’t be rare.”

Roy believes that Mémoires affectives carries a message of hope.
Roy : Here’s someone who goes to the limit in his quest for the truth. It’s true to say that what you don’t know doesn’t harm you, but it’s also true to say that suffering allows people to grow. You stop going round in circles when you succeed in confronting it.