Denis Chouinard
Denis Chouinard has proceeded like someone who has always known what he thinks. He has written and directed or co-directed six evocatively named shorts: On parlait pas allemand in 1985, Les 14 définitions de la pluie in 1993, Le feu in 1995, and, in 1998, the documentary, Le verbe incendié. The list of festivals and awards for his first feature, Clandestins, co-directed with Nicolas Wadimoff, is very impressive. Chouinard won, among others, the Bayard d’Or and the Prix du Public at the Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur in 1997, the Prix Don Quijote at the Festival internazionale del film in Locarno, Switzerland in 1997, and the Prix spécial du Jury at the Festival du film de Paris in 1998.
L’ange de goudron, his second feature, was chosen to open the World Film Festival in Montréal in 2001, where it won for best Canadian feature, as well as the Telefilm Canada award. In 2002, the same film also won the prestigious Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in the Panorama section at the Berlin International Film Festival. The same year, Denis Chouinard directed the documentary, Voir Gilles Groulx, which was chosen to open the 20th Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois. Délivrez-moi (Forgive Me) is his third feature-length drama. He is currently teaching in the film studies department at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). In 2010, he directed a mid-length documentary about an Innu community of the North Coast of Quebec entitled Betsiamites.
He is currently developing Saint-Sauveur, a new feature film.
