The results of the recent Gemini Awards Gala are making waves. Disappointed with the crumbs collected by their works Mégantic, Disobey: Chantale Daigle’s choice And Robot portrait 2 at the celebration of September 17, and taken aback by the awarding of the other awards, Sophie Lorain and Alexis Durand-Brault decided to no longer include the broadcasts of their company ALSO Productions in future editions of the event.
Sophie Lorain insists: her life and business partner, Alexis Durand-Brault, and herself are not bitter. “Don’t make me look like a shrew,” the actress and producer even laughed on Monday, met on the occasion of the release, on October 5, of the film Willby Denys Arcand, where she stars with Rémy Girard.
Nevertheless, the designer does not mince her words to qualify the final honor roll of the 38are Gemini price. “All-around sampling”, “system that makes no sense”, “organization that doesn’t seem to care”: Sophie Lorain is categorical when she decrees that ALSO Productions will no longer participate in the high mass annual event on the small Quebec screen.
“It was complete nonsense. We won’t be there anymore. It’s over. You can’t give away prizes here and there without being consistent in what you give. I think these people should sit down properly and rethink how they make television. Because at the moment, I don’t have the impression that we are doing the same job,” Sophie Lorain calmly lamented.
Consumer pricelation
Certainly, it bothers the leaders of ALSO that the talents of Mégantic And Disobey: Chantale Daigle’s choice have not been further recognized. Mégantic and its slew of special effects were content with the statuette for the best settings: fiction, while Disobey only took away that of the best artistic distribution: fiction.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Éléonore Loiselle and Antoine Pilon, actors in the series Disobey: Chantale Daigle’s choiceand Alexis Durand-Brault in the background
Mégantic was also praised, tied with For you Floraof the Grand Prix de l’Académie, awarded by the board of directors of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television – Quebec section (ACCT), which oversees the Gémeaux, for having made us “look in the face of the pages painful parts of our history,” said host Pierre-Yves Lord during the evening.
“Yeah, what the hell? », opposed Sophie Lorain to the mention of this last distinction, considered by its winners as a consolation prize. “So much the better for the people of Mégantic. At least they didn’t go completely through the butter…”
The trophies for best series (dramatic and daily) awarded to Before the crash and to Indefensible without any other reward (texts, production, interpretation) to support these titles, and the multiple decorations to STAT (writing by Marie-Andrée Labbé, acting by Suzanne Clément and Geneviève Schmidt, production by Danièle Méthot) without the ultimate laurel for best daily series also annoyed the Lorain–Durand-Brault tandem.
Advantageous traditional TV
Sophie Lorain raises, among other misunderstandings, the establishment of non-gendered categories. “No one asked us for our opinion! “, she was indignant. The 20% additional points due to audience ratings, automatically attached to fiction series broadcast on traditional television, which thus become advantaged over those only online on the platforms (“Why are we failed because we are broadcast on a platform, while everyone watches TV on the platforms?”) also put her off, as does the question of high registration fees for the Gémeaux race, also decried by other producers (Guillaume Lspérance and Fabienne Larouche , in particular) this year.
“It cost us a lot of money to register three productions. Since it doesn’t seem to be taken seriously, we prefer to redistribute part of these funds to our artists and artisans, have a drink with them to thank them, and put the money on the screen,” concluded Sophie Lorain, she -even winner of three Gémeaux personally over the years (for Omertà, Fortier And Helping Béatrice).
Invited by The Press to respond to the dissatisfied, the new general director of the ACCT, Chantal Côté, in office for a month, directed The Press to the organization’s website, where the procedure is duly detailed – on 44 pages – to explain the very complex voting method for Gemini, each category having its specificities.
“It is not the role of the Academy to comment on the results of a competition. In a competition, there are always surprises, sometimes difficult to explain. Academy members, including producers who submit projects, know the regulations and have access to this information. Everything is transparent. I am open to dialogue with members. I want them to get involved and talk to me,” summarized Chantal Côté.