French Immersion (film)
| French Immersion | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Kevin Tierney |
| Produced by |
Kevin Tierney Claude Bonin |
| Written by |
Jefferson Lewis Kevin Tierney |
| Starring |
Olunike Adeliyi Dorothée Berryman Martha Burns Pascale Bussières Gavin Crawford Fred Ewanuick Karine Vanasse Colm Feore |
| Music by | Laurent Eyquem |
| Cinematography | Nathalie Moliavko-Visotzky |
| Edited by | Arthur Tarnowski |
Production company |
Park Ex Pictures |
| Distributed by | TVA Films |
Release dates | October 7, 2011 |
Running time | 99 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language |
English French |
French Immersion, subtitled It's Trudeau's Fault in English and C'est la faute à Trudeau in French, is a Canadian comedy film, released in 2011.[1] The film was the directorial debut of longtime film producer Kevin Tierney.[2]
The film centres on several anglophones, mostly Canadians but including one American, who travel to the small village of Saint-Isidore-du-Cœur-de-Jésus in the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec for an intensive French immersion course. The language students include Bobby "JFGay" Sexton (Gavin Crawford), a federal Member of Parliament who aspires to become leader of his political party but is avoiding a debate against rival candidate Michael Pontifikator (Colm Feore) because of his poor French skills; Cathy (Martha Burns), his Royal Canadian Mounted Police bodyguard; Aretha Marley (Olunike Adeliyi), a flight attendant who has taken the immersion course twice before but still cannot speak French, having learned only how to put on a French accent while speaking English; Colin MacGonagle (Fred Ewanuick), a divorced postal worker from Alberta who enters a romance with French teacher Julie Tremblay (Karine Vanasse); and Jonathan Hornstein (Jacob Tierney), a trainee chef from New York City who wants to open a French restaurant.[1]
In Saint-Isidore, nearly all of the 2,000 residents have the surname Tremblay — the sole exceptions are Pierre-Émile Dagnais (Yves Jacques), the strictest and most disciplinarian teacher at the French immersion school, and Kumar (Ali Hassan), a chef from Mumbai who moved to the town because he'd been told the region was where all of Quebec's Indians were. The town's most powerful residents are Sylvie Tremblay (Pascale Bussières), the head of the French immersion school, and her father (Robert Charlebois), a corrupt federal Senator.[3] The cast also includes Dorothée Berryman, Laurence Leboeuf and Sylvain Marcel.
Steven Page's song "A Different Sort of Solitude" garnered a Genie Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 32nd Genie Awards in 2012.[4]
References
- 1 2 "French Immersion: A hilarious bilingual, bicultural sendup". The Globe and Mail, November 7, 2011.
- ↑ "Bilingual film pokes fun at bilingualism". Toronto Star, October 4, 2011.
- ↑ "'Immersion' good-natured fun". canoe.ca, October 6, 2011.
- ↑ "Café de Flore leads Genie32 race" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-06-07.