The old Alstom works at Pointe-Saint-Charles seems an ideal place to settle a score. These brick buildings destined for the demolition worker’s pickaxe stretch endlessly over this huge wasteland sheltered from prying eyes. Dozens of iron rail tracks weave an impressive spider’s web. This week, Roy Dupuis opened one of the doors of this former locomotive factory for a rather mysterious scene about which no-one wanted to say too much in front of journalists. In reality, by the magic of cinema, the actor finds himself transported to Toronto.

The Alstom Studio, producer Barbara Shrier informs me, is a bit like a poor man’s Cinecitta. On a $3 million budget  it’s not possible for her crew to swan around those chic Montreal studios that only the Americans have the means to pay for.  But these buildings from another age that can be converted either into offices or a part of an industrial area offer a location that lends itself to anyone.

On Thursday in this urban set, Francis Leclerc finished a shoot that began in Charlevoix on the 22 January. After Une jeune fille à la fenêtre he tackled Mémoires affectives, his second feature film.

“It’s less stressful,” explains the 33-year-old director when asked about the difference between a first and second film. “It’s no less frightening,” he adds however. “The big advantage, after making Une jeune fille à la fenêtre, is that everyone’s given up on me. I’m quite happy.”

Francis, who hates nothing more than being reminded that he’s the son of Félix Leclerc, takes the time between two takes and two set changes – no slacking allowed! – to credit Marcel Beaulieu, whom he called in to complete the writing on Jeune fille, with the birth of the project.

Flashback

“The story comes more from him than me,” he admits. “Marcel had wanted to tell this story for some 15 years. The main character was called Alexandre and he woke up from a coma.”

“It’s the first time,” the producer tells me, “that Marcel Beaulieu brought a film idea to a director. However the scene that opens the film was initially experienced by the director. He witnessed an accident in Charlevoix; police cars were stopped by the side of the road; a deer had been fatally wounded and a man was lying unconscious.

Marcel wanted the story to be about two brothers and Francis had the idea of the setting. In the end Francis took over the story because it carries his cinematic signature, but throughout the writing they fed each other.”

Roy Dupuis plays Alexandre Tourneur, a wise choice according to Barbara Shrier. This ordinary 40-year-old is the same age as the actor and is not a charmer like the beautiful Alexis. “He doesn’t even kiss,” she remarks. After A man and his sin, here is A man looking into his past.

This country vet, trying to put down a mortally wounded deer by the side of the highway, is himself injured. After a long time in a coma, when Tourneur awakes, he has forgotten his past. The film rests on flashbacks. The only scene still to be filmed is an autumn one showing him as a child, which will be shot in the spring at the end of April.

For the producer it’s about the quest of a man in search of himself, a man who is looking for his place on this planet and in his own life.

“He doesn’t know who he is,” adds Dupuis. “He doesn’t know what his life was. He wants to find out who he is, especially on the emotional level. He tries to find himself through the way others perceive him. And gradually he will discover that he has a wife, a child and a best friend.”

A winter’s tale

Filming was originally planned to take place in the autumn. But after the umpteenth rejection by Téléfilm Leclerc, who didn’t want to postpone it by a year, decided to move the action to winter. Everyone knows the attraction of Charlevoix, and particularly La Malbaie where filming took place. But last January it was bitterly cold. Up to minus 52.

“Everyone was in survival mode,” observes Roy Dupuis, who regrets nothing about the experience, particularly the trips on the snowmobiles that took him to the lake where the filming was.

Leclerc talks about the days when the camera was at risk of freezing. But this Austrian Moviecam had seen worse. Apart from the first takes where the perforations broke. We let it roll, the producer explains, and everything returned to normal.

You can bet that the winter scenes won’t leave people indifferent. The crew at least seem enthusiastic. The producer sings the praises of 30-year-old director of photography, Steve Asselin. “We can’t imagine making the film without him.”

It seems that this production rests on pairings: the director and the screenwriter, the director and the director of photography, and finally the director and his producer.

<< Abbreviated: Her credits include Mémoires affectives, Une jeune fille à la fenêtre, Red Violin, Atlantic City and La Guerre du feu>>

“It’s a huge responsibility to take taxpayers’ money. Three million is a lot of money. My job is to make sure this money shows on the screen.”