As far back as I can remember, Mario Fortin sported his same beautiful smile. That of a smart guy a little gruff, modest, who told no lies to anyone. Neither to his public nor to journalists. Without fuss, with quiet strength and courtesy. Movie madman, high-flying manager, involved in the network of independent cinemas, his head in his ideals and his hands in the grease. He didn’t like to show off the setbacks of his profession too much, approached them with reservations, preferring to look at the rosy side of life.
I saw again in Cannes or elsewhere the CEO of the Beaubien, Parc and Musée cinemas, with his companion and collaborator Louise, who managed the accounts. Endorsements, both of them, even when everything was wrong in the festivals lately.
We met on Wednesday at the Super Mario retirement brunch, alongside members of its Beaubien board of directors, including filmmaker Philippe Falardeau. On December 17, he will bow out. The seventh art in Montreal will feel like an orphan. It is often said in a dramatic voice when a pioneer leaves: “It is the end of an era. Sometimes it’s true.
His love of the big screen in the communion of the audience and his respect for the intelligence of the spectator accompanied by a demanding film buff offer will have marked so many Montrealers. For five years, so well before the pandemic wave, he planned to hand over at the end of 2022: Roland Smith, at 70, had offered him the keys to the Parc cinema. It will mark him. He wants to fade out at the same age. His succession is partly assured. Everything will be finalized over the next few months. “I don’t hate anyone enough to tell them what I did for a long time alone,” he says, smiling. Its cinemas will be managed collectively, with a new president and general manager appointed later.
The instinct of someone who has crossed the ages and his faith as a coalman in the future of the rooms will be missing in the middle. No one is irreplaceable, they say. Let’s go! “No question of playing the mother-in-law”, he assures. But to help those who will succeed him with his lights, why not? “Fifteen years earlier, I would have thought: ‘Impossible for me to leave. There is no succession.” Today, young people full of energy have begun to emerge. His proverbial enthusiasm serves as his compass. As for the mourning to collect from this hyperactive, he will see. So many films are to be seen.
Mario Fortin had been part of the landscape for so long. At the Seville cinema, at Telefilm Canada, at Famous Players, at the International Market of the World Film Festival or elsewhere, he knew music. It helps when setting up a big project.
I see him again in 2001, when he took charge of the former Dauphin, renamed Beaubien, in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, after the bankruptcy of the owner Cineplex Odeon. A whole committee of citizens, merchants, politicians had pushed to the wheel at his side to save the small cultural temple. But nothing was certain, so far from the city center. Was he going to win his raise bet? You speak ! Le Beaubien did not open as planned on September 11 – case of force majeure -, but started later with the fabulous destiny of Amelie Poulain. A triumph!
Over the years, we have seen Mario Fortin struggling in his stronghold, adding new rooms to the small complex, changing chairs, managing the present and the future, imposing a social economy business model, getting involved with other cinema owners in Quebec and in the international arena, develop new audiences and transform the cultural life of the local community.
As a neighborhood cinema, the Beaubien quickly became a real model. Other moviegoers come from afar to recharge their batteries. At the Cinéma du Parc, it’s also rolling. The Museum’s cinema, which was slower to establish itself, relies on screenings in the presence of filmmakers and redefines itself.
Many arthouses, including Ex-Centris, will have fallen in battle. Mario held firm. Still, the pandemic got into his side. He had to close up shop, like so many entrepreneurs, for many months, lay off 39 employees. A temporary measure, yes, but until when? And with what long-term consequences? He didn’t know. All this in a rapidly changing cinematographic landscape.
When we talk to him about competition from new platforms, he reminds us that series work better online than films. As for the young people who accompanied their parents to Beaubien twenty years earlier, they are taking their offspring today who will return tomorrow.
It takes Mario Fortins to foresee a bright future in theaters without shouting “Après moi, le déluge!” “. He will soon leave the stage with elegance, as he lived there.