Telefilm Canada awards the 2013 Guichet d’Or to the director and screenwriter of Louis Cyr: l’homme le plus fort du monde
Director Daniel Roby and writer Sylvain Guy receive prizes
Montreal, June 5, 2014—At an event held this morning at the Club Sportif MAA, Telefilm Canada presented its annual Guichet d’Or Award to director Daniel Roby and screenwriter Sylvain Guy for their film Louis Cyr: l’homme le plus fort du monde (Louis Cyr: The Strongest Man in the World).
The Guichet d’Or has been awarded annually for the past seven years to the Canadian screenwriter and director of the homegrown French-language feature film with the highest domestic box-office earnings in the preceding calendar year. The winning screenwriter and director each receive a cash prize of $20,000. In 2013, Louis Cyr: l’homme le plus fort du monde took in more than $4.2 million at the Canadian box office.
The Award was presented to the two winners by writer/director Luc Dionne, winner of the 2012 Guichet d’Or for the film Omertà. In addition to Daniel Roby and Sylvain Guy, several other members of Louis Cyr’s cast and crew attended the event, among them the producers Caroline Héroux and Stéphanie Héroux of Gaëa Films, producer and distributor Christian Larouche of Christal Films, and actors Antoine Bertrand, Rose-Maïté Erkoreka, Gilbert Sicotte and Eliane Gagnon.
“While most prizes that recognize box-office performance are awarded to producers and distributors, we wanted to instead pay tribute the creative talents that bring our movie industry to life and drive its success,” said Carolle Brabant, Telefilm Canada’s Executive Director. “The Guichet d’Or Award is an integral part of our promotional focus, and so we are very pleased by the fact that the prize receives excellent media coverage every year.”
Daniel Roby added: “When we decided to make a movie about Louis Cyr, we wanted this larger-than-life character, who inspired so many people in his time, to have a similar effect today on as many Quebecers as possible. And in this particular case, we wanted audiences to experience the Louis Cyr phenomenon in a movie theatre. As we all know, many movie-lovers now wait for films to be released on digital platforms so they can watch them at home. Faced with American blockbusters, it’s becoming more and more difficult to create a movie experience that lives up to audience expectations and that generates the word-of-mouth buzz needed to fill movie theatres. What I like about box-office results is that the numbers don’t lie. By achieving the best box-office performance in the last five years for a Quebec film, I think we can say, mission accomplished! Thank you to Telefilm Canada for recognizing, through this award, the contribution that writers and directors make to the audience success of our home-grown films.”
Sylvain Guy further added: “Why audiences fall in love with a given movie is a mystery that we unfortunately haven’t yet solved. All we can do is work as hard as we can, to put our heart and soul into a project, to make that magic happen. And when the miracle happens and we have a hit, we shouldn’t hesitate to celebrate it loud and clear. A big thank you to Telefilm Canada for having supported Louis Cyr at all stages of its creative process and for marking its success in such a gratifying way.”
Over the years, Telefilm’s Guichet d’Or has been awarded, successively, to the directors and writers of the features Les 3 p’tits cochons, Cruising Bar 2, De père en fils, Piché: entre ciel et terre, Starbuck and Omertà.
An award-winning film
Louis Cyr: l’homme le plus fort du monde won nine Jutra awards, including the prizes for best film of the year, artistic direction, sound, makeup, hair and costume design, as well as the Billet d’Or Cineplex (Cineplex Golden Ticket). The film’s stars also picked up Jutra awards, with Antoine Bertrand winning the prize for best actor and Guillaume Cyr the honour for best supporting actor. Louis Cyr also picked up two prizes at the Canadian Screen Awards, for achievement in art design and costume design.
Louis Cyr: l’homme le plus fort du monde is distributed in Canada by Christal Films and abroad by eOne International.
About Telefilm Canada
Telefilm is dedicated to the cultural, commercial and industrial success of Canada’s audiovisual industry. Through its various funding and promotion programs, Telefilm supports dynamic companies and creative talent here at home and around the world. Telefilm also administers the programs of the Canada Media Fund. Visit telefilm.ca and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/telefilm_canada and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/telefilmcanada.
For more information please contact:
Douglas Chow, Telefilm Canada
(514) 283-0838, ext. 2225 or 1-800-567-0890
douglas.chow@telefilm.ca
Photo: (L-R): Luc Dionne, Michel Pradier (Telefilm Canada), Carolle Brabant, Stéphanie Héroux, Christian Larouche, Caroline Héroux , Gilbert Sicotte, Antoine Bertrand, Eliane Gagnon, Marie-France Godbout (Telefilm Canada), Rose-Maïté Erkoreka, Daniel Roby and Sylvain Guy. (Photo credit: Cindy Boyce)