Richard Brouillette
Richard Brouillette is a film producer, director, editor and programmer. Starting as a film critic for the Montréal weekly, Voir (1989), he then worked for Québec’s top independent distribution company, Cinéma Libre (1989-1999), which has since folded. In 1993, he founded the artist-run center Casa Obscura, a multi-disciplinary exhibition space, where he still runs a weekly cine-club called Les projections libérantes, for which he is also the projectionist.
He has produced and directed Too Much is Enough (doc., 111 min., 1995), for which he won the prestigious M. Joan Chalmers Award in 1996; Carpe Diem (experimental, 5 mins., 1995) and Encirclement – Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy (doc., 160 mins., 2008), for which he won six awards including the prestigious Robert and Frances Flaherty Grand Prize of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and Grand Prize La Poste Suisse of the 2009 Visions du réel festival.
He has also produced six feature-length films: Tree with Severed Branches by Pascale Ferland (doc., 81 mins. 2005), Barbers – A Men’s Story by Claude Demers (doc., 82 mins., 2006), Les désœuvrés by René Bail (fiction, 72 mins. 1959-2007), Adagio for a Biker by Pascale Ferland (doc., 90 mins., 2008), Les dames en bleu et Michel Louvain by Claude Demers (doc., 90 mins., 2009) and Chantier by René Bail (doc., 75 mins., 1957-2009). Brouillette has also acted as consulting producer on a number of other documentary projects.
Richard Brouillette has always been very active in Québec’s independent film community, participating in militant actions and devoting himself to the cause of artist-run centers. Since 1993, he has also sat on the Boards of various organizations. He is currently treasurer of the independent filmmakers’ cooperative, Main Film, and administrator of l’Amicale de la culture indépendante, the coop that manages Casa Obscura.