Men, the night | The poetry of great vertigo

It was at the birth of his first child that Anh Minh Truong understood what he wanted to express in a screenplay. “I was dizzy and it opened all the valves”, says the filmmaker who is interested in rites of passage and male vulnerability in his choral film men at night, in theaters this Friday. A work carried out by passionate craftsmen and a close-knit artistic community.

Becoming a father awakened in Anh Minh Truong emotions similar to those experienced by the end of high school and saying goodbye to his hometown, Sherbrooke, to study in Montreal. He then found that these great vertigos occur at several stages of life. “That’s when I wanted to bring together the destinies of three characters who are going through a kind of coming of age, but at different ages,” he explains.

This is how the stories of Michel (Pierre Verville), who is retiring, Steve (Jean-Moïse Martin), who is expecting his first child, and Louis (Matai Stevens), who is finishing high school, found themselves in rub shoulders in a film that takes place over one night. ” In men at nightthe night is a cocoon from which the protagonists emerge to become someone else the next day”, illustrates the director, for whom the night has an undeniable poetic character.

Quand Pierre Verville a lu le scénario d’Anh Minh Truong, il a tout de suite été charmé par l’énigmatique personnage de Michel. « Mon métier, c’est imitateur. Et à l’occasion, je joue. Pas souvent, seulement quand je sens quelque chose de fort et que j’ai l’impression de pouvoir apporter quelque chose », dit-il, ajoutant que la vision du réalisateur cadrait exactement avec son style.

Et ça tombe bien, parce que le cinéaste sait que la force d’un film se trouve souvent dans les moindres détails. « Le cinéma pour moi, c’est de prendre le temps de creuser la forme et le jeu et ensuite d’assurer la conjugaison des deux », explique-t-il.

Un miracle signé Estrie

Des hommes, la nuit est un projet qui mijote depuis 10 ans. De l’idée à la diffusion, Anh Minh Truong a mené son long métrage à terme avec dévouement. Lorsque son scénario a abouti sur les tablettes d’une maison de production de la région de Montréal en 2019, faute de financement, le cinéaste pensait vraiment que c’était mort. « J’ai même envisagé d’en faire un roman ou une bande dessinée », dit celui qui vient du milieu des arts visuels.

C’est finalement Chasseurs films, boîte de production sherbrookoise, qui a pris le film sous son aile, à très peu de frais. « Véronique Vigneault [la productrice exécutive] moved mountains for this film,” insists Anh Minh Truong. At the time director of the Estrien audiovisual and multimedia office (BEAM), she wanted at all costs to make a film in the region to promote local artisans and stimulate the industry.

A soundtrack from here

One of Anh Minh Truong’s other great prides is the entirely Quebec soundtrack of men at night. Behind this victory, among others, the musician and director Pierre-Philippe Côté, alias Pilou, an important player in the cultural development of Estrie^⁠1.

Not only did the latter compose the original music that accompanies the film, but he also gave everything to contact the artists who signed the different songs that Anh Minh Truong imagined to accompany his film. Even if it is naturally that the soundtrack turned out to be 100% Quebecois and French-speaking, it became an assumed choice of the director, even a battle. “I would have had a turd on my heart if there had been a song in English. I’ve come to really care about that statement,” he laughs.