On July 6, 2013, shortly after 11 p.m., the derailment of a train carrying 7.7 million liters of light crude oil caused explosions and a fire of such force in the following hours that the entire downtown Lac -Mégantic is devastated and 47 people are killed there.
“We can’t get over a story like that. We survive. We cling to those who remain. We even rediscover them sometimes with a different look”, says one of the characters of Megantica series of eight episodes produced by Sophie Lorain, Alexis Durand-Brault and Antonello Cozzolino for ALSO which recounts the drama of the Méganticois, 2000 of whom had to be evacuated from their residences because of the power of the flames.
Directed by Alexis Durand-Brault, who wrote the screenplay with Sylvain Guy, who refused three times before agreeing to tell this story that shook the whole world, Megantic is a large-scale choral fiction inspired by the testimonies of some fifty people who witnessed the tragedy. “We don’t often have the money to tell our stories, confides the director, but when you do a series on Mégantic, you have to go all out. The challenge was first financial, but the other big risk is to tell a big story with people still alive with the bias of not taking headliners. »
With the exception of episode 7, devoted to locomotive driver Thomas Harding, renamed Tim Richards (Duanne Murray) for the purposes of fiction, it was the human and not the political aspect that interested the production team. . “Under the mushroom, we wanted to discover the real humans, the real stories,” recalls Sophie Lorain. Political issues will be addressed in Philippe Falardeau’s documentary series, inspired by Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny’s essay, Mégantic, a tragedy foretold (Écosociété, 2021), which will be released later in 2023.
Each episode follows the journey of a character or a family: some end on a note of hope; the others abandon the characters to a terrible fate. Tuesday morning, during the press screening of episodes 1, placed under the sign of tragic loves, and 3, dealing with heroism, we were able to discover Gab (Lauren Hartley), an aspiring singer, and Pat (Olivier Gervais-Courchesne) , his suitor specializing in underwater welding, then the Lamarres, including Vincent (Bruno Marcil, who had played Thomas Harding in the play The Hardingsby Alexia Bürger, in 2018), Daniel (Éric Robidoux) and Julie (Isabelle Guérard).
The scriptwriters having wanted to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the aftermath of the tragedy, episode 4 will be devoted to Bryan (Joakim Robillard), an apprentice firefighter traumatized by a macabre discovery when fighting the fire. “We had to respect their family’s desire that they not be forgotten,” says Sylvain Guy.
Was it too early to launch such a series? “There is no right answer,” replies Denis Dubois, vice-president of original content at Quebecor, who reveals that the watchword was “to work on this subject with great sensitivity”. While a Canadian series would already be in motion and an American platform would have signified its interest in telling the rail tragedy, he believes that “out of respect for the people of Mégantic, Quebecers should be the first to do so”.
A few days before the release of Megantic on the Club illico platform, Public Health sent seven recommendations to the people of Granit — a first in Quebec. On Monday, the series was presented in Lac-Mégantic during a supervised public screening, which generated more testimonials than questions. If the screenwriter Sylvain Guy revealed to feel relieved, Alexis Durand-Brault did not hide that he was still shaken by the experience. “I really like the people of Mégantic, they are courageous people, and I was overwhelmed yesterday to find myself in front of them, to see them continue to live, take care of their children. I may have tried with the light, with the staging, to give them a little hope. »
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