Québécois Film Analysis

In 2016, in light of recent debates in Hollywood over lack of diversity among nominees for prominent awards shows such as the Oscars, it is also important to examine the issue within a Canadian and Québécois context, especially given the rich history of film and television production in Québec. This article paints an austere picture of current realities in which content creators in Québec feel stifled creatively and underappreciated due to racism in the industry.

When award-winning Haitian filmmaker Jephté Bastien was told that in order to join the ranks of the best Québécois filmmakers he would need to make “Quebecer Films,” the question arose: what exactly defines such a genre? What Bastien eventually come to realize was that “films representing
There is a long entrenched belief that immigrants to the province are unable to tell authentic Québécois stories because they cannot not understand the historic struggle of the francophone minority in Canada. Subjected for years to embarrassment from the English, the renaissance of Québécois identity following the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s reaffirmed French Canadian values and strove to protect their history, culture, and language. It can therefore be concluded that the films produced by such a society might produce would strive to uphold these ideals, but this leaves no room for new voices that may wish to tell other stories and experiences. “We want immigrants to change, to integrate, to become like us,” writes Taras Grescoe, author of Sacré Blues “when we watch television, we’re reassured, because it takes us back to the old face of Québec, when it was more homogeneous, more closed. I think we’re insecure about globalization in
As [author notes] notes, despite the large amount of new creative television content being produced in Quebec every year: “The television landscape is striking for the near absence of minorities, except in caricature, as Mafiosi or exemplars of social problems. The current crop of téléromans betrays Quebec’s hesitancy about opening to a world that can’t help but change it.” (p 138). This stereotype is reflected in the real-life experiences of actor Irdens Exantus, who in the article describes turning down many roles in which he was typecast as a gangster. Indeed, these one-dimensional portrayals of minority groups do not reflect the new realities of Québec in