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Jacques Leduc

Jacques Leduc

Directing

Biography

Jacques Leduc (born November 25, 1941) is a Canadian film director and cinematographer. Leduc began his career in 1961 working as a film critic for the magazine Objectif. The following year, at the age of 21, he was hired as a camera assistant by the NFB. Over the course of the next few years he worked under such filmmakers as Denys Arcand, Gilles Carle, and Don Owen. In 1965 he began working as both Director and Cinematographer; his first film as director was a documentary short entitled Chantal en vrac. Leduc continued his work as Director with his first feature film in 1967 entitled Nomininque, depuis qu'il existe and his first feature documentary film in 1969 entitled Cap d'espoir. The documentary film was "about the muted violence that existed [in Quebec] and the monopoly over news held by Power Corp." and became one of the most famous cases of censorship at the NFB when it was banned by NFB commissioner Hugo McPherson. Leduc continued working on critically acclaimed films throughout the 70s and 80s such as On est loin du soleil (1970), Tendresse ordinaire (1973), and Trois pommes à côté du sommeil (1988). In 1990 he left the NFB and became a freelance filmmaker.[3] In 1992 he directed the film La vie fantôme; the film was named Best Canadian Film at the Montreal World Film Festival and earned a Genie Award for Best Screenplay nomination. Since then he has primarily worked with other Directors as their cinematographer and in 2008 was awarded the Prix Albert-Tessier.

Known For

Stardom
5.3

A young girl is plucked from small-town obscurity and thrust into the spotlight of the glamorous world of super-models.

Stardom

2000
Montreal Stories
5.0

Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.

Montreal Stories

1991
Réjeanne Padovani
6.7

The unexpected return of his ex-wife and the assembly of a group of protesters both threaten to wreck a corrupt contractor's inauguration party for his new superhighway.

Réjeanne Padovani

1973
Don't Let It Kill You
5.8

A 30-year old man is forced out of his inert and absent-minded existence when it's complicated by the three women in his life.

Don't Let It Kill You

1967
La vie fantôme
5.5

Pierre is in love with two women and has a stable relationship with both of them. His wife, all by herself, makes him feel whole. However, he has the identical feeling with his librarian mistress and cannot understand why this arrangement shouldn't be satisfactory for everyone concerned.

La vie fantôme

1992
You Cried: Let Me Go
7.5

The Director reflects upon and seeks to understand the causes and the events that lead to her drug-addicted prostitute daughter being murdered at the age of 26.

You Cried: Let Me Go

1997
St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea
10.0

In this spectacular feature-length documentary, oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and an NFB crew sail up the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes on board the specially equipped vessel, the Calypso. They explore the countryside from their helicopter and plumb the depths of the waters in their diving saucer. They encounter shipwrecks, the Manicouagan power dam, Niagara Falls, the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway and an underwater chase with caribou.

St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea

1982
Ville-Marie
8.0

Today it is the city of Montreal, but 3 centuries ago the tiny band of missionary founders called it Ville-Marie, the holy city of Mary. This film goes back to its beginning and those who felt called to plant an oasis of Christianity in the North American wilderness. In an imaginative, at times almost surrealistic, way the film recalls the highborn company from France, and shows what survives of Ville-Marie in the Montreal of today.

Ville-Marie

1965
Our Land, Our Truth
7.0

Made in collaboration with the Inuit Tungavingat Nunamini, this film focuses on those dissident members of the Inuit community who rejected the agreement signed on November 11, 1975, between the Northern Quebec Inuit Association, the Québec and federal governments, the James Bay Energy Corporation, the James Bay Development Corporation, Hydro-Québec and the Grand Council of the Crees, which took away Native rights to a territory of almost one million square kilometres. By their words and actions, the dissident Inuit of Povungnituk, Ivujivik and Sugluk express their strong desire to retain their land and their traditions. The filmmakers go into their homes, on the ice and the sea to record first-hand the lives of these northern people.

Our Land, Our Truth

1983
Trying to Describe Oneself
7.4

Trying to describe oneself is a movie about representation. How it is possible, through film, to describe oneself and describe others. With the camera as mirror and third eye. At first, a collage-like combination of letter-writing, investigation and journey, something between documentary and feature film. Finally, a portrait of Boris Lehman from 1989 to 1995, part II of BABEL.

Trying to Describe Oneself

2005
Tree with Severed Branches
N/A

In Moscow, two elderly men who lived under the Soviet regime adapt to their new sociopolitical reality by creating an imaginary world through art.​

Tree with Severed Branches

2005
Geneviève
6.7

Two teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love. One of four film sketches on the problems of adolescents facing the adult world in the 1960s included in the anthology film That Tender Age (La fleur de l'âge, ou Les adolescentes). The three other sketches were directed by Jean Rouch, Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Gian Vittorio Baldi.

Geneviève

1964
Lessons on Life
8.0

A day in the life of a Quebec magazine writer - his fortieth birthday - from his dream before waking to his last act before sleeping. He looks back over his life, his thoughts, and his loves.

Lessons on Life

1989
Nominingue... depuis qu'il existe
10.0

A Docufiction about the twin realities of the Nominingue village in rural quebec, a poverty town turned vacation spot. where the older generation remembers the harsh conditions and poverty that afflicted them, while younger generations and tourist deal with ennui.

Nominingue... depuis qu'il existe

1967
Le temps qu'il fait
N/A

Nestor, Lei, Pierrette, Mohamed, Hafida, Marius, Marc, Galina, Genady, Mike and Lala: through their presence, Le temps qu’il fait weaves a mosaic of stories in which dreams and disappointments, hopes and worries intertwine with the life that is before them. In counterpoint, there are these new landscapes of financial centers, abandoned industrial spaces and wasteland from which we hear the echo of speeches that call to take the train of the new economy. By their simple attachment to a profession which gives them a living, the men and women of the film put up resistance to these slogans. Little by little, a radical rupture is emerging between economic thought and the movement of life. A break that shapes the present time.

Le temps qu'il fait

1997
No image
6.2

A young man and his girlfriend visit his parents at their lake house for the weekend. While there, the couple meets an eccentric artist who comes between them.

My Friend Pierrette

1969
Bad Girl
5.5

The film investigates explicit representations of female sexuality by women, exploring the pragmatic and philosophical questions they pose, with emphasis on the ways in which the creation of women-friendly pornography confronts and alters the expectations of male consumers. Ultimately, Nitoslawska is concerned with how we comprehend desire, gender and identity, how we understand and represent its history, and the resulting affect on culture and human relations.

Bad Girl

2001
« Les Oreilles » mène l'enquête
7.0

Short fictional film recounting the adventures of a gang of young boys with more than one trick up their sleeve. Together, they plan bad things to raise enough money to buy their dream radio station. To make matters worse, they have part of their nest egg stolen, although it is well hidden in a cabin. An investigation will follow to find the culprit of the "crime". Will they get their money back?

« Les Oreilles » mène l'enquête

1974
Four Women of Egypt
9.0

Four female friends from Egypt with opposing religious, social, and political views listen to one another's perspectives and argue openly, without ever breaking the bond that unites them.

Four Women of Egypt

1997
No image
7.0

A documentary about the act of filmmaking.

La beauté du geste

2004