TROUBLED FEST HAS ITS FANS
FFM changed Nic Balthazar’s life
Nic Balthazar has giddy memories of his experience at the Festival des films du monde (FFM) in 2007.
At the time, the Belgian writerdirector was making the leap from film critic (and, briefly, travel show correspondent) to filmmaker, and he hit the ground running when his debut feature Ben X won the FFM’s Grand Prix des Amériques, along with the audience award and the ecumenical jury prize.
“Montreal really changed my life completely,” said Balthazar, reached Wednesday afternoon at his home in Ghent, with a ticket to Montreal in hand. His third film, Everybody Happy, screens Sunday, much like Ben X did nine years ago.
“The first time we screened Ben X,” he said, “was a Sunday morning. It seemed like a dream come true. The Montreal audience stood up and cheered for the film for 10 or 15 minutes. I didn’t know what was happening. People were laughing, crying, shouting ‘Bravo!’
“The jury was also there. I’ll never forget the moment Serge Losique said (as I was leaving Montreal): ‘You’re getting on the plane to Brussels only to come back two days later.’
“I said, ‘Maybe you know more than I do.’
“He said (affecting a boisterous, perfectly accented Losique imitation): ‘Je ne peux pas parler au jury mais j’entends ce qu’ils disent!’ ”
Balthazar is aware he is returning to a very different festival almost a decade later. The FFM is in a state of unprecedented crisis, having lost access to the seven screens it had intended to use at the Cineplex Forum (after Cineplex Entertainment officially cut ties with the festival on Wednesday), where the majority of its lineup was scheduled to play.
Tuesday’s mass exodus of staff — by way of an open letter criticizing Losique and the event’s lack of funds, organization and support — left only a handful of employees to desperately rejig the festival lineup in order to accommodate at least some (but sadly, nowhere near all) of the filmmakers arriving with nowhere to present their films. All of the FFM’s drastically reduced lineup will now be shown on the single screen of the heavily mortgaged Imperial Cinema, which the FFM owns.
Balthazar is one of the lucky ones. Everybody Happy is in official competition, and thus had two screenings at the Imperial (plus one at the Forum) already reserved. With the rejigged program, his movie will screen just once, Sunday at 4:30 p.m., meaning Balthazar will have a lot of spare time on his hands during his nine days here. Not that he’s complaining.
“I’m in love with Montreal,” he said. “The first time I came, I said: ‘Do they put something in the water? What is it with people? Everyone is being so nice, in two languages.’ “
It’s no surprise Balthazar feels at home here. The man speaks five languages fluently, and can get by in two more. So how did this easygoing, fun-loving guy come to make the deceptively titled Everybody Happy, about a standup comedian struggling with existential angst?
“I know the moment the idea came to me,” he said. “I was in a Paris hotel room with my wife, having a great time. Everything was swell. Then we went to bed. Two hours later, I was still lying there, wide-awake, with all these things racing through my head. I had an idea of this little f---er lying next to me, keeping me awake, talking into my ears. I thought, ‘If only I could go to the windows and chuck him over the balcony, I’d be free.”
In Everybody Happy, Balthazar’s protagonist, Ralph (Peter Van Den Begin), is stalked by a real-life embodiment of this nagging voice (played by standup comedian and first-time actor Jeroen Leenders), but is pulled out of his mire with help from fellow veteran standup Laura (Barbara Sarafian).
“It’s not a film about standup comedy,” Balthazar said. “It’s not a comedy per se. It’s a film about that little devil who is always telling us we’re no good, we’re not doing it right, that voice that keeps us down. The film is about how to get rid of ourselves.”
For a few hours Thursday evening, one could almost pretend everything was going great at the Festival des films du monde. There was a big crowd on hand for the world première of André Forcier’s Embrasse-moi comme tu m’aimes, the opening film. There were stars on the red carpet, people in the street and something resembling excitement in the air.
Alas, it’s back to reality now that the FFM is underway. For author and filmmaker Ellen Snortland, who made the trip to show her documentary Beauty Bites Beast, that means coming to terms with the fact that she, like several other filmmakers, has travelled here for naught.
“I’m out on my proverbial ass,” she said by email Friday morning. Turns out her film about empowering women to fight back won’t be shown after all.
“I’m trying to have a sense of humour about it. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.”