A little less than a year ago, when I met her on a lively and sunny terrace in Cannes, Geneviève Albert looked downcast. The Montreal filmmaker wondered if her film, Noémie says yesunanimously acclaimed by Quebec critics, would be entitled to a European career.
The big festivals give priority to the premieres. Gold, Noémie says yesa powerful work on juvenile prostitution, had been presented at the opening of Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, in the winter of 2022. Also, the film was not selected by the Cannes Film Festival after having been pre-selected there, and the the same scenario repeated itself at the Locarno Festival.
A year later, the low mine of the filmmaker has however disappeared. And for good reason. Noémie says yes will be released in France on April 26 on no less than 250 screens. A remarkable release for the harsh and intimate first feature film by a Quebec filmmaker unknown to the battalion, featuring a cast of equally unknown young actors.
“The enthusiasm is really exceptional. It’s very moving for me. It’s a small miracle! “, confides to me Geneviève Albert, whose cinephilia was nourished more in adolescence by the French films of François Truffaut and Louis Malle than by American cinema.
Exceptional is a well-chosen word. Among Quebec films, only those by Denys Arcand and Xavier Dolan were entitled to larger releases than that of Noémie says yes. In comparison, I killed my mother by Xavier Dolan had been distributed in around sixty cinemas after a highly noticed Cannes debut in 2009. My brother’s wife by Monia Chokri, another first Quebec feature film awarded at Cannes, was shown on 130 screens in 2019.
Barbarian invasions by Denys Arcand, the greatest popular success of a Quebec film in France, was released in 2003 on some 400 screens, a record for a Quebec film, in the wake of its Cannes title. The Dark Agesby the same filmmaker, hit 260 screens four years later. Mommy by Xavier Dolan, which has accumulated more than a million admissions in France, was shown on 315 screens after being tipped for the Palme d’Or.
How does Geneviève Albert explain that her film, which was not selected in the biggest European festivals, arouses so much interest in France?
“Two prizes at the Angoulême Festival, that counts in France”, specifies the filmmaker, joined in Toronto, where Noémie says yes is a finalist in two categories, Thursday evening, at the Canadian Screen Awards gala (best performance in a leading role for Kelly Depeault and best first feature film). “It’s an important festival for the French cinema community, which happens just before the big autumn releases. »
Above all, Geneviève Albert is lucky, she says, to count on a very committed small distributor who believes enormously in her film. Jonathan Musset (Wayna Pitch) had previously distributed on fifty French screens A colony by Quebecer Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, which stars Émilie Bierre. “He is obviously not the only one to believe in it, because many cinemas in France have decided to follow him. There is really a passion for Noémie says yes. »
The film, available in Quebec on Crave, tells a week in the life of Noémie, 15, who after running away from a youth center, is recruited as an escort by a smooth-talking pimp, the time of the Montreal Grand Prix. Kelly Depeault, revealed by The Goddess of Fireflies by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, is moving with anger and fragility in the lead role. Geneviève Albert constantly reminds us, through the subtle details of her staging, that Noémie is above all a child who has been rejected by her mother.
Since Noémie says yes won two prizes at the Dieppe Canadian Film Festival at the end of March (best film and best female interpretation), Geneviève Albert accompanies her film almost everywhere in France on the occasion of previews. There will be more than 80 French cities by the release of the film, in two weeks.
“I should be there in about 25 cities to meet the public and the French media”, specifies the filmmaker, who attended the Parisian preview of her film, Monday at UGC Les Halles – the largest cinema complex in Europe – and will be on Saturday at the mythical Grand Rex in Paris, where Noémie says yes is presented as part of the Cinéma For Change festival.
I tell him that the French public is perhaps interested in the unvarnished image of prostitution that it presents, contrary to that often romanticized or aestheticized in French cinema, beautiful day To Young and beautiful.
” I think you are right. In France, prostitution has been brought to the screen in a glamorous way. Noemie does not borrow this aesthetic approach at all. I was told several times in France: we were waiting for this film! »
A year after opening in Montreal, on the fringes of the more prestigious festival circuit, Geneviève Albert’s film has carved out a place for itself in various European and Latin American festivals. It will soon be presented in the United States. “I’m very happy to have been able to accompany the film to meet the public, other filmmakers, festival programmers, producers,” she said. And I am pleasantly surprised and reassured that films can have a life without going through the biggest festivals. »
The disappointment that I read on her face at Cannes last May is just a memory that she can now laugh at. His film took another trajectory. And what a trajectory!
Noémie says yes is offered on Crave