Daniel Langlois (1957-2023) | The avant-garde dreamer

He was an avant-garde, a visionary, a very generous patron. Daniel Langlois, who died in tragic circumstances with his wife Dominique Marchand, was a discreet man who did not like to appear in the media. The complete opposite of these megalomaniac multimillionaires whose oversized egos flood social networks.

Langlois had become a businessman by force of circumstances, but remained an artist at heart. Innovation was its driving force: technological, artistic, ecological. For 25 years, the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology has supported projects all over the world. And above all, since 2015, environmental initiatives in emerging countries, including Dominica, which had become as much its home port as Montreal.

Daniel Langlois first made his mark in animated cinema, notably at the National Film Board. In 1985 he co-directed the short film Tony de Peltrierecognized at the time by future Pixar executive John Lasseter (Toy Story, Cars) as “a flagship work which, in several years, will be recognized as the first to have featured flesh-and-blood characters animated by computer”.

The 3D animation software designed by his company Softimage has been used in Hollywood mega-successes such as The Jurassic Park, Titanic, Harry Potter And The Lord of the Rings. After selling his company to Microsoft in 1994, he decided to invest his energy, money and know-how in Quebec.

I only properly interviewed him once, 15 years ago. He welcomed me to the Méliès café at his Ex-Centris complex. A shadow decision-maker who made an exception for the 10 years of his foundation. I understood then that his history with Quebec cinema was one of disillusionment. Promises had been made to him that had not been kept. He preferred to withdraw rather than waste more time and money on projects doomed to failure for which he was paying the price in the media.

I always had the impression that Quebec society was not moving fast enough for him.

He had imagined and built a Formula 1 racing car at a high price, the Ex-Centris complex, forced to drive on poorly maintained roads, infested with potholes and hampered by orange cones. This state-of-the-art multidisciplinary cultural center has never reached its full potential.

Daniel Langlois dreamed that this unique venue, which he had largely designed himself, would host, with its hydraulic platforms, retractable seats and state-of-the-art installations, a multitude of avant-garde multimedia projects. He also dreamed that his theaters would benefit from the revolution announced in the world of digital distribution, in order to allow filmmakers to reach the public directly without going through traditional channels.

The sad irony of Ex-Centris, which closed its doors permanently in 2016, but which Daniel Langlois had abandoned to its fate upon its temporary closure in 2009, is that this ultra-modern complex served as a model for the Lightbox, headquarters vibrant Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

In 2005, Langlois was at the heart of Montreal’s last push to try to compete with TIFF on the festival scene. The fiasco of the Montreal International Film Festival (FIFM), led by Équipe Spectra, was the straw that broke the camel’s back for his enthusiasm for the Quebec cinema world.

Langlois had been for seven years, with great happiness, president of the board of directors of the Festival du nouveau cinéma, which he took the beautiful risk of leaving in order to join the “unifying festival” desired by SODEC and Telefilm Canada to replace the dying World Film Festival (FFM). He inaugurated his Digimart, a stillborn digital film market like the FIFM, which only had one edition.

The collapse of the FIFM tarnished the international reputation of Montreal and divided the cinema world more than ever, to which Daniel Langlois, disappointed, gradually turned his back. “The setbacks at the festivals really cooled me down. I no longer feel like putting my energy into that. I have so much to do. The history of festivals has consumed a lot of my energies, for little results on the creative level,” he confided to me in 2007.

“I got involved very quickly, even though there was a bit of arm-twisting to get me to do it, but I withdrew quite quickly too, because there were no discussions of content. There were only ego discussions. Egos are used to break down doors, not to make joint projects. »

For 10 years, Daniel Langlois offered moviegoers the Mecca of movie theaters in Montreal, absorbing deficit after deficit, saving the Parallèle cinema and the Festival du nouveau cinéma from sinking, modernizing the Cinéma du Parc.

At its peak, in the early 2000s, Ex-Centris accounted for 40% to 50% of the total revenues of foreign art-house cinema in Montreal.

With his usual elegance, Langlois ended up selling the Ex-Centris rooms and their equipment in 2011 for half of their market value, the equivalent of a donation of one million. He withdrew to his lands, notably in Dominica, with his project for a self-sufficient hotel complex, then turned mainly to philanthropy with an environmental vocation (the purchase of Mont Pinacle in Estrie, in particular).

Cinephiles will remember the best days of Ex-Centris, while abroad, we were envious of these ultra-modern installations, embodied by these famous futuristic window windows. Daniel Langlois has breathed new dynamism into this corner of the Hand moribund. He made us dream. It has allowed a number of artists to develop. His technological innovations will survive him, like the projects of his foundation. The misfortune of this gifted, shy and reserved dreamer is that he was ahead of his time. May he rest in peace.