FEATURE FILMS
Louve d'or
Presented by Québécor
Best feature film in the International Competition ($15,000 cash from Québecor)
Interpretation Price
Best actor or actress in a feature film in the Internationale Compétition
AQCC Price
Best feature film in the International Competition
Innovation Price - Daniel Langlois
To highlight the exceptional contribution of Daniel Langlois to the FNC’s development and continuing success, as well as his dedication to championing the arts and culture, the Daniel Langlois Innovation Award recognizes a work in the International Competition that stands out for its daring aesthetics, creative use of new technologies and/or groundbreaking treatment of a sensitive subject matter.
International Competition Jury
Félize Frappier is passionate about the films she produces, helping the filmmakers to bring the stories they envisioned to life. She produced Wetlands by Guy Édoin (2011 Venice Critics’ Week, Toronto, Pusan, Canada’s Top Ten), Another House by Mathieu Roy (Audience Prize and Best Actor at 2013 FFM) and Corbo by Mathieu Denis (2014 Toronto, Canada’s Top Ten, 2015 Berlin Generation). Her latest production, Ville-Marie by Guy Édoin, starring Monica Bellucci, Pascale Bussières, Aliocha Schneider and Patrick Hivon, will be released October 9th.
After directing several shorts, Maxime Giroux made three feature films. His first, Jo pour Jonathan, won the 2010 Festival du nouveau cinéma’s AQCC award. In 2014, he completed his third feature, Félix et Meira, which won the 2014 FNC Louve d’or award for best feature film in the International Competition, as well as Best Canadian Feature Film at TIFF. It screened in competition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and at over sixty other festivals, winning nearly twenty awards.
Richard Peña was the program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the director of the New York Film Festival from 1988 through 2012. A frequent lecturer internationally on a wide variety of film topics, he is a professor of film studies at Columbia University, where he specializes in film theory and international cinema; in 2015-2016, he will be a visiting professor in film studies at Harvard. He is also the co-host of Channel 13’s weekly Reel 13.
A film studies graduate of Université de Montréal, Pascal Grenier has several years of working as a programmer for the Fantasia film festival to his credit. An active member of the AQCC, for the past ten years, he has been a regular contributor to Séquences magazine. A film buff and avid collector, he wrote a film blog for the Journal Métro website for close to three years and has been selected for international critics’ jury duty on four occasions for FIPRESCI.
Maxime Labrecque is a doctoral student and film studies lecturer at Université de Montréal. His research focuses mainly on ensemble films from an interdisciplinary perspective combining sociology, hypermedia and television studies. His eclectic interests cover all types of cinema. He has also written for Séquences magazine and Le Quatre trois for several years.
André Roy, a writer, has been a film critic for forty years. He has published many essays on cinema, including Cent films à voir en vidéo (1997) and Voyage au pays du cinéma (1999), as well as Dictionnaire général du cinéma: Du cinématographe à Internet (2007). He has sat on juries for many international film festivals, among them Berlin, Locarno, Brussels, San Francisco and Toronto.
SHORT FILMS
Loup argenté
Best short film in the International Competition
Born in the Spanish Basque Country, Ainhoa Jauregui studied translation and interpretation at Université de Grenade. After several years working for a Seville-based independent film production company, she moved to Paris in 1993. In 1995, she joined the Centre national du cinéma in the department of European and international affairs. Her experience there opened doors for her at uniFrance Films, where she has handled promotion for French films in the Short Film department since 1996.
Nelson MacDonald splits his time and passion between programming and producing. At the helm of the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival, he invited a lineup of celebrated international auteurs. With Ashley McKenzie, Nelson has produced four shorts. Their debut, Rhonda’s Party, was named to TIFF’s Top Ten Shorts of 2011. Their next short, When You Sleep, premiered at TIFF and was nominated at the Stockholm International Film Festival. Their latest effort, 4 Quarters, is now making its way on the festival circuit.
An actor, writer, director, musician and polymorphic performer, Emmanuel Schwartz has pursued his career for over fifteen years onstage and onscreen, working with creative heavyweights from near and far: Wajdi Mouawad, Mani Soleymanlou, Marc Beaupré, Denis Villeneuve, Christian Lapointe, Brigitte Haentjens and Xavier Dolan, to name just a few. In the 2015-2016 season, we will see him onstage at La Licorne in The Events, at the TNM in En attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot), at Espace Go in 5 Kings and on the big screen in Chasse Galerie.
Grand Price Focus
Presented by Air France
Best feature film in the Focus competition ($5,000 cash)
Focus Jury
Since 1973, Mario Fortin has gained experience in every facet of movie theatre administration and film distribution and production. Along with running the Beaubien and Parc cinemas, he selects and programs films. He won the Prix Jutra for best exhibitor in Quebec in 2004, Personality of the Week in 2008 and HEC Montréal’s award for cultural management in 2013.
Suzanne started her producing carreer in 1985. She dedicated her energies to first time filmmakers by producing two short and seven feature films. Some of which were Candy Mountain by Robert Frank and Rudy Wurlitzer, Cuervo by Carlos Ferrand and Baltic Fire by Zoe Dirse. She then explored the broadcasting world in 1995 at TFO-TVOntario and then at Radio-Canada in 2002 where she is presently Creative Head for Youth Programming and Feature Documentaries.
Alessandro Raja is a Paris-based film professional and founder of Festival Scope launched in 2010. After completing a degree in business studies at Bocconi University in Milan, he went on to work in various branches of the film industry, ranging from international sales and acquisitions at Celluloid Dreams (Paris, 2005-2009) and The Coproduction Office (Paris, 2004), — to distribution — Artificial Eye (London, 2000-2003) — to exhibition — THE Everyman (London, 1999-2000). Since 2012 he has also been a programmer for the Sarajevo Film Festival.
Presented by Post Moderne
Best short film in the Focus competition ($3,000 cash and $12,000 in post-production services awarded by Post-Moderne)
Creativity Price
Presented by MAtv
Awarded to the most original short film in the Focus competition ($1,000 cash prize awarded by MAtv)
Daniel Ebner is co-founder and artistic director of the Austrian short film festival VIS Vienna Independent Shorts. He studied film and cultural theory in Vienna and Berlin. In 2008 he co-produced four short films for the European Football Championships, in 2009 he was selected as Young European Talent of the EU Committee of the Regions, in 2012 he was co-founder of the Association of Austrian Film Festivals and since 2014 he has been a member of Vienna’s short film funding committee.
With the support of the Austrian Embassy in Ottawa
Mike Plante is a filmmaker and festival programmer. He is currently a senior programmer for short films at the Sundance Film Festival, where he has worked since 2001. Since 1998 he has published Cinemad Magazine, first in print and today as a blog and podcast at IBlameSociety.com. He commissioned the short film series Lunchfilm and Orbit(film), directed the feature documentary Be Like An Ant and produced the feature documentary Giuseppe Makes A Movie, which screened at FNC in 2014.
Seigo joined Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia for its 2nd edition in 2000, and since 2003, has been the festival director. Established in 1999, the festival’s objective is to introduce international short films to the Japanese public. Since 2004, with the support of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the festival has developed a series of competitions featuring Asian short films, including today’s best Japanese short films.
Public Price
Presented by TFO
Best feature film in the Temps Ø section ($5,000 cash from TFO Media Group)
FNC Lab Price - Feature Films
Best feature film in the FNC Lab competition
FNC Lab Price - Short Films
Best short film in the FNC Lab competition
FNC Lab Jury
Roxanne Arsenault has been active on the Montreal cultural scene for fifteen years. A passionate advocate of contemporary art, she is currently programming coordinator of the Centre CLARK. She holds an MA in Art History; her research interests include kitsch, representation, exoticism, restoration and heritage. She was a radio host with CISM for twelve years as well as an occasional columnist for Radio-Canada. She also remains active on the local music scene through her projects Donzelle and Les temps liquides in addition to chairing the board of the Pop Montréal Festival.
Born in 1981 in Chicoutimi, Québec, Félix Dufour-Laperrière studied in Montreal, where he currently resides. A director, screenwriter and independent producer, his films span animation, essay and experimental approaches. They are characterized by constant tension between the story and formal exploration, and are closely aligned with visual and contemporary arts. His works have been presented in numerous festivals, galleries, museums and major national and international events and have won several awards and distinctions.
Mario Kozina has been publishing film-related articles on various Croatian online, radio, television and print platforms since 2006. He is a member of the selection committee of 25 FPS Festival, editor-in-chief of the film magazine Filmonaut and promotion coordinator in the Croatian Audiovisual Center’s festivals and promotion department. He works regularly with International Film Festival Rotterdam’s short film program. In 2008, he was awarded the Vladimir Vuković Certificate for best young film critic.
Innovation Price
Presented by Urbania
Awarded to the most innovative work for new platforms ($1,000 cash from Urbania)
José Luis de Vicente, a Barcelona-based new media programmer, works in programming for Sónar+D, the creative technologies convention associated with the famous Catalan festival Sónar. He also programs for the FutureEverything festival (Manchester). He has organized numerous exhibitions, symposiums and conferences. He is an author and researcher whose many areas of interest include art and new media, digital creativity, design innovation, magic and technology.
Neam Cathod-Jean Décarie works in media arts, first and foremost as an electroacoustic composer since 1977 and as a video maker and multidisciplinary artist since 1982. His works have been seen nationally and internationally in exhibitions and festivals. Some of his video works are part of the permanent collection at the National Gallery of Canada, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Canadian Embassy in Japan and the Cinémathèque québécoise. He is currently director of the Hexagram-UQAM center for research and creation.
Jean-Christophe Yacono, aka Yako, is a French Canadian author, director and producer. A key figure in the Canadian industry known for his avant-garde approach to interactive, immersive and participatory experience design, he is considered one of the most innovative creative directors in the field. The quality of his work has been lauded with numerous national and international distinctions from bodies such as Grafika, Boomerang, the Gémeaux, Numix, FWA, Webby, SXSW, Comm Art, TDC and ADC. Yako is a signatory of the Manifeste pour les Nouvelles Écritures, a statement of intent on digital and interactive cultural production in Québec.
2nd Edition
RPC Price
Presented by Ulule
Given to the winner of the Pan-Canadian Student Film Meetings ($1,500 to start a crowdfunding campaign and personalized pre-campaign support).
After completing his studies at Concordia University, Olivier Godin made several independent films, developing a direct homemade approach to filmmaking. His short films La boutique de forge (2012) and Feu de Bengale (2014), each won Grand Prix Focus awards for best Canadian short at the FNC. In 2014, a first retrospective of his work was presented at the Cinémathèque québécoise. Olivier is currently in pre-production for his third feature, Les arts de la parole.
Sophie Goyette is a writer and filmmaker of five award-winning films selected for competition at Sundance, Locarno and TIFF. Her film La ronde (2011), which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, has won six awards including best short film at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (RVCQ). Screened in competition at the Sundance Festival, her short Le futur proche (2012) has won six awards including the National Award for its world premiere at Regard Saguenay. Sophie is currently working on her first fiction feature.
A Montréal native, Marie-Ève Juste worked at the Cinémathèque québécoise from 2003 to 2007, where she became versed in the language and history of film. Since 2011, she has written and directed four short films that screened at numerous international festivals and at the 44th Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. Determined to pursue her cinematic adventure, she aspires to make films peppered with humour and poetry that attest to the treasured moments woven into the warp of human existence.
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