Story continues below advertisement
“I’m happy for Genevieve this year, but does it have an impact in terms of the curiosity of those in the rest of the country to see a film or not? I don’t feel it, no,” says Lesage.Adds Giroux: “It’s not that big a difference when you win a prize or don’t win a prize, which is a shame. But it is more important when we win or are nominated in Quebec for [the Prix Iris awards] than in the rest of Canada.
“My film is a story that takes place in a particular community in the countryside of Quebec, but it’s also a story that everybody who was a teenager will relate to,” she says. “We’ve had success in festivals around the world, yet it’s just so hard to cross the frontier between French and English Canada.”
"I refuse to see something like Netflix as the saviour of our cinema. It's a good thing they can come in and finance films that are not able to find money elsewhere, but the risk then is that the government goes, 'Okay, we don't need to support Canadian cinema because Netflix is taking care of it.' That would be completely devastating," says Lesage.
GlobeArts DeclouxJ