Intense drama Feux wins big at Quebec TV awards
Feux was one of the most buzzedabout shows of the past year of Québécois television, so it was not entirely surprising that the Radio-Canada drama picked up some major awards at the 32nd Prix Gémeaux gala Sunday night at Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts.
The Prix Gémeaux doles out awards to those who work in the French-language TV business ici.
Feux won as best drama series and its two lead actors were honoured, with Alexandre Goyette winning for best actor in a drama and Maude Guérin taking the hardware as best actress in a drama.
Penned by Serge Boucher, one of the best writers working in the TV biz, Feux is an intense drama about Claudine (Guérin), who appears to be living a near-perfect life, with a happy family and a successful career. Then one day she runs into Marc (Goyette), whom she babysat three decades earlier in Rimouski.
They begin a torrid affair and all hell breaks loose, some of it sparked by their relationship and the even heavier stuff caused by what happened 30 years earlier when a fire burned down Marc’s family home and killed his mother.
“These wins show that a series that is this intense can succeed,” Guérin said in an interview backstage at the gala. “For sure it can scare people sometimes when a show is too dramatic. Because a lot happens in this series. But people really got into it.”
Added Goyette: “I think it’s because behind all of the tragedy, there was a real humanity and everyone could relate to that. And you really have to give credit to Serge and his writing, and also give thanks to the finesse in the direction (of Claude Desrosiers).”
One of the reasons the show clicked with audiences was that Goyette and Guérin delivered such powerful performances, and both are well aware that they snared once-in-a-lifetime roles.
“We don’t always have the chance to play such extraordinary roles,” said Guérin. “Claudine was an incredible part to play. She has a perfect life and then it all comes crumbling down when she meets the little boy she babysat 30 years earlier. And it’s all about nuance, because Serge Boucher’s writing is all about what’s left unsaid between the lines of dialogue. There was a magic in this show and we all felt it. It’s rare that this happens in our business.”
Another show that generated enormous chatter over the course of the past TV season was Lâcher prise, a very smart dramatic comedy about a woman dealing with major burnout. It was voted best comedy at Sunday’s gala, and Sophie Cadieux — who was brilliant as Valérie Danault, the woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown — won as best actress in a comedy.
“I remain worried about the health and the presence of French in Montreal,” said Louis-José Houde, who won the Gémeaux award for best host of a comedy or variety special for his work as host of the ADISQ gala.
He went on to take some shots at the local francophone music radio stations that have been fighting to reduce the quotas for French-language music from the current level of 65 per cent.
“Even if I was a plumber, this would upset me,” Houde said in an interview backstage. “I think we have to give a chance for people to consume the culture from here and to have our local music broadcast on the radio. Radio is still where we make most of our musical discoveries.”
One of the odd wrinkles at the Gémeaux gala was that District 31 was not nominated in a single category. The nightly Radio-Canada cop drama pulls in 1.2 million viewers on average, making it one of the biggest hits in local television, but it was shut out of all the categories thanks to the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television’s strange rules. It was the only daily drama produced this year, and the academy’s rules would not allow District 31 to compete with dramas that don’t have as many episodes.
At least the wildly popular show managed to nab its moment in the spotlight at the gala: the academy came up with a kind of consolation prize for the drama, giving it the Prix Jean-Besré, which is handed out only sporadically, to either a person or a show. (It has been given out only five times since it was inaugurated in 2003.)
Producers Fabienne Larouche and Michel Trudeau, along with screenwriter Luc Dionne, were on hand to receive the honour.
Other winners included Unité 9 as best year-long drama, En direct de l’univers as best variety show, Pier-Luc Funk as best actor in a year-long drama for Mémoires vives, Antoine Bertrand as best actor in a comedy for Boomerang, and Céline Bonnier as best actress in a year-long drama for L’heure bleue.