Philippe Falardeau
Philippe Falardeau
Philippe Falardeauis a Canadian film director and screenwriter...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionDirector
CountryCanada
children real school
It's like a laboratory, a micro-society of real life, so it didn't look odd to talk about bureaucracy. In the school, in the class, there are already a lot of children from different ethnic backgrounds so the reality is there. I don't have to shove it in people's face. It's just there and it's normal.
teacher children school
Any place where you have to deal with many social actors like a school - you have the parents, the Ministry of Education, the school board, and the teachers - you need all kinds of sets and rules. You're trying to foresee anything that can happen and everything becomes really rigid. They don't want to talk about death because they don't want to overwhelm the children, but that has already happened, so you're not going to overwhelm them more.
mistake school stories
In the private system and the private schools, the principal is pretty much a dictator. He or she can hire whoever s/he wants. Of course, in the movie, in the story, she makes a mistake by hiring him. But, if she doesn't, I have no story.
school space giving
If you look at the end of the movie [Monsegnor Lahzar], I give a lot of space to what the spectator can also imagine of what's going to be Bachir's life afterwards. So, there's the restraint part, and there's the fact that the story is happening in the school which allowed me to tackle all these subjects without making it too didactic, because in the school everything happens.
apart facing fixing huge trying
When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them.
comparing films less
In Quebec, we're less inhibited artistically, culturally, politically. We're less focused on box office and comparing our films to the American films.
cannot direct love main script
I would love to write a script where the main character is a woman. I know I can direct a film where the main character is a woman. I cannot write that film.
When you're younger, and you do your first or second film, you want to show everyone what you can do.
Once you're on the set and shooting, it's all just cinema. You have actors and cameras.
city concerns issue province quebec subject tackle time
In the province of Quebec where I come from, we speak French, and the only cosmopolitan city is Montreal. Every time we tackle the subject of immigration and racial tension, it's an issue that concerns Montreal.
funny keen
I'm not too keen on jokes that are one-liners. I want the situation to be funny.
teacher children teaching
The teacher will never be a parent. The parents are the parents. But they have to engage in some sort of active education beyond just teaching mathematics and French and English because the kids spend more time there than they do with their parents at that age. We have to accept that other adults will be part of our children's education and they will have bad teachers. That's going to happen.
oscars stuff used
I don't like ostentatious galas and stuff like that, but if you get to the Oscars, you'd better get used to it and you'd better enjoy it.
country mean thinking
I think it's the same thing for a country. We are lucky then that we can get some financing from the government, because it means when I get the money, when I get the grant to do the film, of course it's based on the script, but I have total artistic control and I can do personal stuff.