Nearly 10 years ago, Martin Villeneuve made Imelda episode 1, a satirical short film in which he played his sulphurous — but endearing — grandmother, who had just died. Since then, this tribute to this larger-than-life character has been developed into a self-financed feature film. Entitled The 12 labors of Imelda and conceived as a series of 12 comic sketches, the film opens at the end of the week.
“Imelda was detestable and endearing at the same time. She could be very generous for a moment, then freak out for free, ”says Martin Villeneuve. The director has undoubtedly succeeded in representing all the contradictions that inhabited his grandmother. Embittered but proud, taciturn but comical, she did not go unnoticed in her small village of Gentilly, near Trois-Rivières.
The film therefore represents, in 12 chapters, real moments in the life of the late grandmother of Martin Villeneuve. “All the scenes are inspired by real stories. We would have liked to invent them but that would not have been possible,” he says.
The 12 Labors opens as the director’s father (Robert Lepage) finds a box in the basement of the family home filled with memories, captured on VHS and Super 8. The chapters that follow chronicle various memories of the family, with as a common thread the quest of Imelda, who tries to find the trace of her former lover who disappeared, a poet, whom she left for a notary, with whom she founded her family decades earlier.
A “confrontational” experience
“There has always been a strong cinephile culture at home, explains Martin Villeneuve. My father has always captured our memories with his old cameras. It is certain that it influenced us, my brother Denis and me, ”adds the director.
His brother, 11 years his senior, is indeed the illustrious filmmaker behind Hollywood successes Dunes and blade runner 2049. Martin Villeneuve recognizes that “Denis has always been the favorite of [sa] grandmother,” but he couldn’t help but laugh at him in The 12 labors. Towards the end of the film, Imelda sends money to Denis, who has gone to shoot abroad, believing that his career as an artist will be of no use to him…
“It was always the great drama of my grandmother, having to choose between stability and the life of an artist”, says the director. The latter descends from three generations of notaries, and recounts having had to fight to justify his life choices to his family: “I had no role model, except my brother. »
The writing of the screenplay 12 works of Imelda was also sometimes “confrontational”, says Martin Villeneuve, since all the members of his family had to approve it. “Denis howled with laughter,” he says, but his aunt (played by Anne-Marie Cadieux), who says in the film that she was always sure of being adopted when Imelda refused to admit it, “s remembered more difficult memories”. The film thus turned out to be “therapeutic”, according to the director.
A “generous” distribution
Martin Villeneuve affirms that he surrounded himself with a particularly “generous” distribution since his actors agreed to shoot for free, he says, while the film experienced many financing difficulties.
“I had to fight with institutions throughout my career as a filmmaker,” says the director. The 12 labors of Imelda is his second feature film, after March Aprila science fiction film that opened in 2012. In both cases, Telefilm Canada and SODEC did not support it. March April had in particular been the subject of online crowdfunding.
Funding or not The 12 Labors from Imelda features an impressive cast, including Robert Lepage, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Antoine Bertrand, Yves Jacques, Michel Barrette and none other than Ginette Reno. She interprets Simone, the eternal enemy of Imelda. “Ginette Reno gave one of the most memorable performances in Quebec cinema in Leoloso I was very honored that she so generously agreed to play the game, ”says Martin Villeneuve.
Most of the feature film’s headliners will also return in a series of short films, still inspired by Imelda’s stories, which will be released “in the coming months”, says the director. These shorts will repeat some scenes from the film, as the previous shorts on Imelda, episodes 2 and 3 launched in 2020, have been added to the feature.