Teen romance was a family affair
Thivierge bypassed funding complications with help from relatives
When you’re starting out, sometimes it’s quicker and cheaper to do things yourself — with a little help from your family.
La Fille du Martin, a teen adventure romance set in a fishing lodge in Lac-St-Jean, was written, directed and co-produced by and stars a young Quebec actor named Samuel Thivierge.
He and his two brothers and their father shot the 84-minute picture for a scant $300,000 — all raised privately, no government subsidy — at the family’s camp near La Doré.
It’s in competition in the First Films category at the 37th Festival des films du monde.
“We decided to use what we have to make the movie happen: our family owns the lodge, we all own a construction company, and I have experience as an actor,” said Thivierge, 23, who trained at the Vancouver Film School.
“It was easy for us,” added his brother Réal Jr., 30, who also acts in the film and co-produced with their middle sibling, Paul, 28, and their father, Réal Sr. — who has a small role, too, as a poacher. “We put all our equipment together, all our knowledge, and made the movie.”
Wilderness locales seem to be a bit of a trend for Canadian movies at the fest. Three other indie debut features — Algonquin, by McGill University-trained Jonathan Hayes; A Fish Story, by Montreal-born Matt Birman; and Solo, by Concordia University-trained Isaac Cravit — are set in remote places.
But the Thivierges’ film is the only one selected for competition.
For the family, looking for public financing for their project would have taken too long, with no guarantees the project would ever get off the ground, the brothers said.
“We could have gone through the regular process with SODEC and Telefilm and waited three years, but if they hadn’t liked our story, it would be back to square one — we wouldn’t have made anything in all that time,” said Réal Jr.
“So we went the other way: we did it ourselves.”
With a digital camera and other rented equipment, the family and a crew of over 25 people spent a month last summer shooting the film at Pourvoirie des Laurentides, the Thivierge lodge 500 kilometres north of Montreal.
The story is rather simple: After the death of her father, a young Montreal woman named Sara (Catherine Michaud) heads north to visit the camp they’d booked for a fishing holiday, and there falls in love with her guide, a young man named Daniel (Thivierge). There’s some action and a few scares, but in general, the movie has a gentle tone and commercial feel that the filmmakers hope will appeal to young female audiences between 15 and 30 years old.
“It’s more of a chick flick, let’s say,” said Thivierge, who usually plays tough guys in action movies.
He’s a drug dealer in the upcoming Ontario indie drama The Road to Tophet, and is just back from a shoot in China, where he was cast as a foreign mercenary sniper in Wolf, a Jacky Wu war movie that’s slated for release in 2014.
The brothers don’t have a distributor yet for La Fille du Martin, but they figure getting selected for the Festival des films du monde is a good start. In late October, they’ll take it south of the border to the New York City Independent Film Festival.
They’re already at work on a new script, this time for an urban action thriller Thivierge describes as “a Quebec Catch Me if You Can.”
With their debut effort, “we already feel like winners, getting into this festival,” Thivierge said. “Whether we win or not, the next movie’s already on the way.”