Jappeloup is a horse of a different colour for director
Christian Duguay’s French-language debut a runaway hit in France
It took Montreal director Christian Duguay more than 20 years to make a French-language film, and it turns out that his first film in his mother tongue is one of his most successful.
Jappeloup, l’étoffe d’un champion, which has its Quebec première in official competition at the Festival des films du monde Thursday, was a huge success in France this year. More than two million people bought tickets to see the France-Canada co-production, an unprecedented result in France for a film directed by a Quebecer.
It helped that it’s based on a true story that’s well known in France: the inspirational tale of Pierre Durand, an equestrian champion who won gold at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 for show jumping.
In an interview Wednesday, Duguay said finally directing a Frenchlanguage film after more than two decades in the biz kind of happened by chance.
“I had to find the piece that was really suitable,” Duguay said. “With a lot of my American films, I was just a gun for hire, and I think I sharpened my skills doing it. But with Jappeloup, I got a lot more involved emotionally and I could give it a more personal signature.”
Duguay started his career here making action and genre flicks like Screamers, The Assignment and The Art of War, then moved into directing high-profile American miniseries, most notably Joan of Arc, Hitler: The Rise of Evil and the Montreal-produced Human Trafficking.
He has more of a personal connection to Jappeloup, just like the French movie star Guillaume Canet, who stars as Durand and wrote the screenplay. Both Duguay and Canet were avid horse riders earlier in their lives.
In the film, much of the focus is on the relationship between Durand and his father (played by veteran Gallic thespian Daniel Auteuil), who spent years helping his son develop his equestrian talents. Duguay also has fond memories of his father taking him to equestrian competitions all across Canada.
“I was the No. 1 junior rider in Quebec,” said Duguay, who at one time thought that would be his career.
Like Durand, Duguay drifted away from that world. In his case, he never went back, ending up in the film milieu. Durand is shown in the movie working as a lawyer, but he’s eventually pulled back into competitive show jumping and his fate is inextricably linked to an unusual small horse named Jappeloup.
What’s interesting about the film is that it combines elements of French cinema — particularly the epic biopic — with a more Hollywood approach.
“Obviously, I have a North American upbringing in terms of how to make films, and I’ve done epic bigscope movies,” Duguay said.
And his eclectic career continues — he has just wrapped work on a miniseries based on the Tolstoy classic Anna Karenina and is preparing an ambitious miniseries called The Deal, about U.S. law enforcement agents, the marines and the Mafia collaborating to get troops into Sicily during the Second World War.
Right now, he’s just pleased to be at the Festival des films du monde, but he’s even more pumped to be bringing his first franco feature to a hometown audience.
“I’m happy to present a French movie in Montreal — that’s all,” said Duguay. “That’s the main thing. If I was in Toronto (at the Toronto International Film Festival), I’d be under a pile of American movies. For me, it’s important to be here and to have a real première in a big theatre, where I can finally show a movie I’m really proud of to my community.
“That’s never happened to me, ever. And that’s exciting. It’s extraordinary to show it in a big screening room and feel the reaction. When we showed it in France in big theatres, it was amazing to see how the people react. It has a sort of domino effect. Everyone succumbs to their emotions. You hear people sobbing.”
Jappeloup, l’étoffe d’un cham
pion screens at the Festival des films du monde Thursday at 9 a.m. at the Imperial Cinema, 1430 Bleury St., and again Thursday at 7 p.m. at Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts. The film opens across Quebec on Sept. 6. For more information on the festival, visit ffm-montreal.org.