Posted at 7:00 a.m.
On TV, we’ve seen her in a lot of recently aired series, be it Miscellaneous, After, The breakaway, The fault Where District 31. At the same time, the actress and filmmaker Alexa-Jeanne Dubé is increasing the number of projects fueled by a creative act that she considers vital in the pursuit of her work.
Thus, her most recent short film as screenwriter and director, Joutel, has been rolling for a while and was recently chosen to open the Plein (s) Ecran (s) festival which begins on Wednesday. An honor she rejoices in.
“ Joutel is my third Full Screen (s) film which constitutes, in my opinion, a brilliant idea, she said in an interview. We spend so much time on our screens, so I like the idea of bringing the cinema there. Every time I have shown a film there, thousands of people have seen it and I have heard from it several times. It’s fantastic. ”
The happy experience of the first two passages should be repeated with Joutel, a film telling the story, tinged with magical realism, of an elderly couple, Jocelyne and Gérard (Marie Tifo and Pierre Curzi), who must face the prospect of a life which is coming to an end.
After discovering a dead animal while picking up (dead) leaves on his land, Gérard expresses aloud his fear of dying. Jocelyne then offers him to go to their former village of Joutel to bury the animal, in the hope that this will exorcise their demons. Meanwhile, a mysterious character (Peter James) who rides in a wheelchair is constantly on their heels.
“I was inspired by my grandparents to tell this story,” says Alexa-Jeanne Dubé, who admits to being distressed by death since childhood.
They have never lived in a ghost village, but to see them grow old, to hear them questioning themselves about death is a quest for meaning that has inspired me a lot. I wondered how we experience this. And talking about it including a ghost town in the narrative is a nice parallel to talking about what we leave behind when it all ends.
Alexa-Jeanne Dubé
Located in northern Quebec, the mining village of Joutel really existed. It was closed in the late 1990s with the end of mining. In this moving, empathetic and mysterious film, the village, or rather what remains of it, is a character in its own right.
As for the character of the stranger, “he is like death in person who runs after the couple”, says the screenwriter and director.
A good balance
The actress, who graduated from the Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe theater school in 2011, sees the different avenues she explores in her profession as a way of maintaining balance.
When asked if this career with many avenues is the best of all possible worlds, she answers: “It is representative of the person that I am. I have several interests. I first trained as an actress, which is my primary passion. But what really turned on me in the game is the side of the imagination, the creation.
Of course, I like to build a character, but I try a lot to understand what the work is, what the author tried to say. Writing and directing is a bit like that.
Alexa-Jeanne Dubé
Currently, she is working on a short film project (whose screenplay, co-written with actress Fanny Migneault-Lecavalier, is ready), a serial project and another feature film.
The Plein (s) Écran (s) festival takes place from January 12 to 23 on the festival’s website and social networks. During this period, we will be able to see, free of charge, 41 short films at a rate of 4 per day, available for a period of 24 hours before being replaced. Several special events are added to the screenings.