Right way to catch a thief
Quebec producer’s most important film
Denise Robert is a movie producer with a phenomenal record of box- office success, even by the standards of Quebec cinema. Her recent track record includes the Oscar- winning Barbarian Invasions, the gay- wedding comedy Mambo Italiano.
Still, almost nobody thought even this woman with the Midas touch could achieve commercial success with a feature documentary about abused children who got lost in the system.
Yet Thieves of Innocence ( Les voleurs d’enfance)
— which arrives in Toronto on Friday — surprised just about everyone, except Robert, by becoming a box-office phenomenon from the moment it opened on 71 screens across Quebec a few weeks ago. So far it has grossed $ 1.6 million at the box office. No wonder. This is a haunting, heartbreaking film with a disturbing impact that lingers long after the lights come up.
Picking at her salad over lunch during a whirlwind visit to Toronto recently, Robert offered a confession: when she approached Alliance to distribute and finance the movie, she could tell, even though the answer was yes, that nobody in the company expected to make a dime.
“ I could see it in the eyes of the executive I was dealing with,” she recalls. “ He was saying yes to be charitable.”
Alliance, in truth, had good reason to go along with her request. After all, she had given the company other movies that did extremely well.
Barbarian Invasions, written and directed by her celebrated husband, Denys Arcand, not only made money but raised the company’s prestige internationally, becoming the first Canadian movie to win the Academy Award for best foreign film.
Besides, this little documentary would cost less than $ 1 million.
Still, people wondered why Robert, who was on a roll making storytelling movies, and who had never before produced a documentary, would want to undertake a non- fiction information film, especially on a grim and depressing subject.
Actually, there was a good reason. She had just finished producing a fictional costume picture called Aurore, which was successfully released in Quebec a few months ago after being shown at Cannes in May.
That movie told the story of a famous case of child abuse that occurred circa 1920. It’s about a violent stepmother who kills an innocent 10- year- old girl.
“ I started to get calls from people,” Robert says. “ They wanted to know why I was spending all this time and energy on something that happened a century ago when there were far worse things happening today.”
Instead of brushing off such comments, Robert decided they had a point. She was disturbed by the statistics, such as 30,000 kids under the protection of the Quebec government. But who could write and direct it? She thought of Paul Arcand, a popular radio host with an in- terest is this kind of issue. ( He is not related to Denys Arcand.)
“ I needed someone who had intellectual integrity and curiosity and the capacity to ask the right questions,” she explains. Her instinct was correct.
“ Denise called me because she had seen me on TV interviewing victims of sexual abuse. We started to do our research, making lists of the people we wanted to be on screen. I didn’t want the movie to be just about the system or just about victims. This is the story of Quebec’s dark secret and it’s part of our history. I wanted all kinds of people from different generations and backgrounds to tell their stories.” The result may not be a feelgood movie, but people who see it tend to have a highly emotional reaction. “ A lot of people told me that after they saw the movie they hugged their kids,” says Arcand. But the bureaucrats at the Quebec government’s youth protection program — implictly criticized in the movie — are less enthusiastic.
“ They were more concerned about their image than about the kids they are supposed to protect,” says Robert. Now, having made the film, Robert finds it hard to close the book on it and move on.
“ When you do a fiction film, you just go on to the next film. But in this case, I feel a responsibility to those abused children who have entrusted their secrets to us. I feel I have to do something about it. I can’t just walk away and not be concerned with helping the victims and trying to force the government to change the system.
“ I’ve become very involved in the issue, and I think it may be the most important film I’ve ever made.” Bulletin: More good news about Canadian movies at the box office: Deepa Mehta’s Water, the opening gala at the Toronto International Film Festival, grossed more than $ 157,000 last weekend when it opened on 11 screens in Toronto and Vancouver. It scored a sensational per- screen average of more than $ 14,000. mknelman@thestar.ca