FNC 2013: Une Vie Pour Deux

Une Vie Pour Deux Official Poster

UNE VIE POUR DEUX

Directors: Luc Bourdon, Alice Ronfard

Play adaptation (script): Evelyne de la Chenelière

Actors:  Violette Chauveau, Jean-François Casabonne and Evelyne de la Chenelière

2013 | O.V. French | Quebec, Canada | 75min | colour

FNC OFFICIAL filM SYNOPSIS :

"What is a couple? Two people who try to build a life together or who simply live under the same roof? Is it easier to accept a man’s indiscretions? Is the first step in dominating a woman to rob her of her voice? French cultural journalist Bernard Pivot asked these questions, and many others, in his interview with Marie Cardinal in 1978, following the publication of her novel Une vie pour deux. It tells the story of Simone and Jean-François, a couple on the verge of breaking up, who are forced to re-examine their relationship after discovering the body of a young woman while on vacation in Ireland. Just as Evelyne de la Chenelière’s theatrical adaptation of the novel is set to return to the stage in Montreal, this film (the product of an artists’ residency at the Prim Centre) links the fascinating interview footage with the play’s subtle yet powerful staging. After winning the award for Best Canadian Feature at the 2008 Festival du Nouveau Cinéma for La mémoire des anges, Luc Bourdon teams up with Marie Cardinal’s daughter, Alice Ronfard, to pay heartfelt homage to this renowned feminist author, who passed away in 2001."

This film will have its world premiere on Monday, October 14, with actors Violette Chauveau, Jean-François Casabonne and Evelyne de la Chenelière attending. The film is presented in the FOCUS section, it is one of 12 features competing in this selection of cinema from Quebec and Canada.

Luc Bourdon partners with stage director Alice Ronfard to offer a fascinating reinterpretation of the theatre play adaptation created by an author and actress Evelyne de la Chenelière, based on the novel Une vie pour deux by Marie Cardinal (Les mots pour le dire), Alice Ronfard’s mother. It is a powerful essay-film, a testimony of creative work. Literature, theatre and cinema combine here to deliver a powerful effect. Une vie pour deux invites spectators to take in the voice of three characters on the screen and witness their struggle to find love and their place in life. Imaginary blends with real, the reconstruction of motives and events takes place to explain things one cannot grasp or understand in another. What is real? What is the expression of oneself that justifies one's life vis-a-vis a life partner or a fleeting lover? Where does one's self ends and the other's self begins?

Freely adapted from a novel, Une vie pour deux (La chair et autres fragments de l'amour), the film is inspired by a true story, the discovery by the husband of the author (stage director Jean-Pierre Ronfard) of the corpse of a young woman on a beach in Ireland at the end of the 70s. With its simultaneously subtle and powerful staging, the play received a very warm welcome from audiences and critics when it was presented at Espace Go in the spring of 2013. Moreover, actress Violette Chauveau won the Best actress of the year award from the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre.

  

World premiere at Festival du nouveau cinéma

Monday, October 14 at 7 p.m. at Cinéma Excentris – hosted by the film cast and crew

Thursday, October 17 at 1 p.m. at Cinéma Excentris

Film's Trailer:

Une vie pour deux (Luc Bourdon, Alice Ronfard) - Bande annonce

Une vie pour deux was made during a two-year creation and production residency offered by PRIM on the occasion of the centre turning 30.

PRIM - Productions Réalisations Indépendantes de Montréal is a self-managed centre in the service of the creativity of professional motion picture and sound artists who want to make quality independent works, in a context of hybridity of practices. PRIM is subsidized by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Conseil des arts de Montréal.