Sent into exile in Cuba in December 1970, the Felquist Jacques Lanctôt was immersed in a world of Cuban and Latin American “revolutionaries”. He wanted to train in urban guerrilla warfare in the hope of one day resuming the armed struggle for the independence of Quebec, but the Cuban government refused: Fidel Castro had sworn allegiance to his friend Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who was a of the rare Western leaders to recognize the communist regime in power in Havana.
“This friendship between Fidel and Trudeau Sr. contributed to the disappearance of the FLQ [le Front de libération du Québec] », Says filmmaker Pedro Ruiz, who returns to the exile of Jacques Lanctôt in Cuba in his most recent film.
The docufiction The eighth floor, days of revolt recounts the ups and downs of young Lanctôt’s nearly four-year stay in Cuba. This member of the FLQ received safe conduct from the Trudeau government to take refuge there in exchange for the release of British diplomat James Richard Cross, who was held hostage by the Quebec armed group.
The film alternates between archive images and fictional scenes, inspired by Lanctôt’s memories, shot in Cuba in March 2023. We see the father of the family, then aged 24, his wife and their two children accommodated in a suite of the eighth floor of the legendary Hotel Nacional. Housed and fed, Jacques Lanctôt killed time in the hotel bar with his friends, poets, intellectuals and Latin American guerrillas, refugees like him in Fidel’s socialist paradise.
The handful of FLQ members “were not prepared” for armed struggle, asserts Jacques Lanctôt in Pedro Ruiz’s film. “We were romantic revolutionaries,” adds the former Felquist, who will celebrate his 78th birthday on November 5.
Upon his return to Quebec in 1979 after his Cuban exile and a detour through France, Lanctôt was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in Cross’s kidnapping. Subsequently becoming an author and editor, he notably published the first novels of Dany Laferrière.
The “romantic revolutionary” is tired today. Weakened by a degenerative illness, he notes with bitterness that his dream of a country remains unfulfilled. Certain revolutionary movements of his Latin American “comrades” were more successful than that of Quebec.
Sentenced to 14 years in prison for terrorism, guerrilla José “Pepe” Mujica eventually became a minister, senator and president of Uruguay. His Tupamaros movement, violently repressed by those in power, was an inspiration for the FLQ, recalls Pedro Ruiz.
Obstacle course
At the time of Lanctôt’s exile, the Castro regime made a point of offering military training to revolutionaries from the continent, but those from Quebec did not have this privilege: Castro only swore by his friend Trudeau, which gave legitimacy to the Cuban government banned by the United States. This friendship lasted until the death of Trudeau Sr. THE maximum leader even traveled to Montreal for the funeral of his Canadian friend in October 2000.
Throughout his stay in the Caribbean, Lanctôt dreamed of only one thing: returning to Quebec to continue the “national liberation struggle”. And he was hard-headed. Faced with the Castro regime’s refusal to initiate him in the art of war, Lanctôt wrote to the leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, in the hope of obtaining asylum in this other land of ” resistance” against imperialism.
Unsurprisingly, the young Quebecer’s call went unanswered. He had to content himself with taking self-defense and weapons handling courses on the campus of the University of Havana – training which was short-lived, in this environment where walls have ears.
The Castro regime also refused to produce a false passport that would have opened the way for Lanctôt’s return to the country, but it allowed the young revolutionary to work. Faithful to the “revolutionary” catechism, Lanctôt stayed in the countryside to learn how to harvest sugar cane.
The little guy from Rosemont led a “pasha’s life” in a villa, but he shed blood and tears while learning the hard job of wielding a machete. His “comrades” also taught him the art of fighting blisters on his hands with human urine.
“A singular character”
Pedro Ruiz, born in Venezuela into a family close to the left, arrived in Quebec in 2002. He denies praising Jacques Lanctôt, whom he does not consider a “hero”.
“He is a singular character, who is part of the contemporary history of Quebec. His story deserves to be told,” says the filmmaker, who is also a photojournalist. He collaborated on Duty in recent years, before devoting himself primarily to cinema. The FLQ is described by historians as a terrorist group, but Pedro Ruiz refuses to attach this label to Jacques Lanctôt, who killed no one. And who served his sentence for his role within the movement.
Half a century later, the FLQ episode remains a trauma in the history of Quebec. Jacques Lanctôt states in the film that at the time, he felt more comfortable in Cuba than in Quebec, where his ideas remained in the minority. He now divides his time between the two countries of his life. It was not possible to meet him this week.
Coincidence or not, Pedro Ruiz had to be patient to finance his film. Pierre Karl Péladeau was one of the spark plugs of the project. In addition to Quebecor, the Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada and the Rogers Foundation provided a total of $400,000. A relatively modest budget for a work which includes 27 days of filming abroad. In addition to Lanctôt, actors Martin Dubreuil and Luis Alberto Garcia play the main characters.