Nancy Grant

Nancy Grant is a French-Québécois Canadian film producer. She was born in the small village of Petit-Matane, on the Gaspé Peninsula in the north of Quebec, Canada.[1] She has produced multiple projects with several Quebec filmmakers including Maxime Giroux, Xavier Dolan, Denis Côté, and Anne Émond. Her recent productions include Tom at the Farm (2013), Mommy (2014), and Félix et Meira (2014), which have received numerous awards at institutions including the Toronto International Film Festival, Alfred Bauer Berlin International Film Festival, Academy Awards, and Cannes Film Festival.

Nancy Grant at 40th César Awards, 2015.

In 2014, she was awarded Best Motion Picture for Mommy at the Canadian Screen Awards.

Career

Grant went to McGill University in Montreal, Canada in the early 2000s, studying psychology and international development.[1] She graduated in 2005, and shortly after realized her true passion of cinema. With Sylvain Corbeil, she founded Metafilms in Montreal in 2003.[2] She is attracted to filmmakers with an individual voice whom she can support in long-term and frequent collaborations, including directors Xavier Dolan and Maxime Giroux.

Tom a la ferme

Grant took the main stage when she collaborated with Xavier Dolan in 2012.[3] They have created 3 films together since then. Their first project was Tom at the Farm (Tom à la ferme) in 2013, a film based on the play by Michel Marc Bouchard. It was a part of the main screen competition at the 70th Venice International Film Festival,[4] in the special presentation at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and was a leading nominee for the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards.[5] The psychological thriller follows Tom (played by Dolan himself), a man who has suddenly lost his lover Guillaume, to a remote country home for the funeral where Guillaume's family expects a woman in his place. He decides to keep his relations with Guillaume a secret, but finds himself in an unexpected game with Guillaume's aggressive and curious brother. The film was generally well received as a Hitchcockian Montreal psychological drama thriller; suspense and secrets with country landscapes. It was also criticized for Dolan as self-obsessed screenwriter, director, co-producer, editor and actor.[6] The film was nominated for 8 awards at the Canadian Screen Awards, and for two at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the prestigious FIPRESCI Award.

Mommy

Dolan and Grant continued to collaborate. Shortly after their first project, they produced College Boy, a music video for the French rock band Indochine.[1] Afterwards in 2014, they embarked on Mommy. It is a story of a recently widowed mother and her sometimes violent son with ADHD, trying to cope with their new life. A new neighbour offers her help as the family searches for hope and balance. 90% of both critics and audiences raved about the film and Dolan's authentic style; "Dolan loves close-ups and he gives his actors every chance to demonstrate their talent for ringing the emotional changes in a single take".[7] The film was shot in a square 1:1 ratio, a refreshing sight in theatres. "I just wanted to shoot portrait aspect ratio that would allow me to be very close to characters, avoid distractions to the left and right of the frame and have the audience look the characters right in the eye", explains Dolan on his unique choice of framing.[8] The film has become one of the greatest successes in Québécois cinema in the past decades, receiving over 29 awards internationally.[9]

Grant and Dolan already have another project in action, Dolan's first English-language film The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, a "showbiz satire with a big-name cast: Jessica Chastain, Kit Harington, Susan Sarandon, and Kathy Bates".[1]

Félix et Meira

While Grant was producing Mommy, she was also producing Felix and Meira, directed by Maxime Giroux. Inspired by a neighborhood he used to live in with a large Hasidic Jewish population, it is an unconventional romance between a young man mourning his dying father and a young Hasidic wife a few blocks away. It was selected to represent Canada as a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards.[10] Most critics and audiences praised the film for its sensitive depiction of the Hasidic community.[11] It was authentic to his community, with English, French and Yiddish spoken. The actors were courageous former Hasidic Jews that have left the community.[10] "I learned a lot about my city, the community I live in and [myself] also. And I think that's why I go to the cinema and I think that's why I live — to learn more about other people."[11] Producing the film was in a real indie fashion; they did not have the secure funding while filming but they still went for it, "we were shooting it with $500,000, that's it, and we shot in Venice, Italy, and in Brooklyn", explains Grant about producing Félix et Meira at the same time as Mommy.[1][12] The film had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, where it also won the prestigious Best Canadian Film award, beating Mommy among other films.

Filmography
Year Film Director Credit
2006 One Last Dance Richard Lehun Production Manager
2006 Passage (short) Karl Lemieux Production Manager
2007 All That She Wants (Elle veut le chaos) Denis Côté Production Coordinator/Second Assistant Director
2007 L'appel du vide (short) Albéric Aurtenèche Production Coordinator
2007 Code 13 (short) Mathieu Denis Production Coordinator
2008 Les affluents volume III: la battue (short) Guy Édoin Line Producder
2008 Reviens-tu ce soir? (short) Geneviève Albert Producer
2010 Cinéma des aveugles (short) Daniel Canty Producer
2010 Félix et Malou (short) Sophie Dupuis Producer
2010 Opening Up (M'ouvrir) (short) Albéric Aurtenèche Producer
2010 Silence Lies (Tromper le silence) Julie Hivon Producer, Production Manager
2010 Curling Denis Côté Production Manager
2011 Nuit #1 Anne Émond Producer
2011 Laurentie Mathieu Denis & Simon Lavoie Producer
2011 Plus rien ne vouloir (short) Anne Émond Producer
2012 Faillir (short) Sophie Dupuis Producer
2012 The Torrent (Le Torrent) Simon Lavoie Associate Producer and Production Manager
2013 La tête en bas (short) Maxime Giroux Producer
2013 Tom at the Farm (Tom à la ferme) Xavier Dolan Executive Producer
2013 An Extraordinary Person (Quelqu'un d'extraordinaire) (short) Monia Chokri Producer
2013 Acrobat (short) Eduardo Menz Producer
2013 "College Boy" (Indochine) short Xavier Dolan Executive Producer
2013 Vic and Flo Saw a Bear (Vic + flo ont vu un ours) Denis Côté Associate Producer
2013 Diego Star Frédérick Pelletier Producer
2014 Felix and Meira (Félix et Meira) Maxime Giroux Producer
2014 Mommy Xavier Dolan Producer
2014 Joy of Man's Desiring (Que ta joie demeure) (documentary)[13] Denis Côté Producer
2015 Our Loved Ones (Les êtres chers) Anne Émond Producer (with Sylvain Corbeil)
2016 Shambles (Maudite poutine) Karl Lemieux Producer
2016 It's Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde) Xavier Dolan Producer
2017 The Death and Life of John F. Donovan Xavier Dolan Producer

Awards and nominations

Grant won the Best Film award at the 17th Jutra Awards for her production of Mommy. The film was included in Canada's Top Ten feature films of 2014 selected by filmmakers and industry professionals at TIFF.[14] She was also awarded the 2014 CMPA Feature Film Producer's Award.[15]

References
  1. A rising star in Quebec film Archived 2016-05-03 at the Wayback Machine, McGill News, April 14, 2015.
  2. "Metafilms". metafilms.ca. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  3. "A rising star in Quebec film : McGill News". publications.mcgill.ca. Archived from the original on 2016-05-03. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  4. "Venice film festival 2013: the full line-up". the Guardian. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  5. "Canadian Screen Awards: Orphan Black, Less Than Kind, Enemy nominated". www.cbc.ca. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  6. "Tom at the Farm: Venice Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  7. "Mommy". www.rottentomatoes.com. 2015-01-23. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  8. "Why Xavier Dolan's 'Mommy' Was Shot as a Perfect Square". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  9. "Mommy - Awards- IMDb". IMDb. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
  10. "Telefilm Canada announces that Félix et Meira is Canada's selection for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2016 - Telefilm Canada". www.telefilm.ca. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  11. "Félix et Meira tapped as Canada's Oscar foreign-language film contender". www.cbc.ca. Retrieved 2017-11-05.
  12. "Tournage de Félix et Meira: un amour impossible | André Duchesne | Cinéma québécois". La Presse (in French). Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  13. Nancy Grant CV, Retrieved 04 October 2015.
  14. TIFF's Top Ten Film Festival: Spotlight on Canadian film", Linda Barnard (1 December 2014). Toronto Star. Retrieved 04 October 2015.
  15. Nancy Grant wins CMPA Producer's Award", Katie Bailey (5 September 2014). Toronto Star. Retrieved 04 October 2015.
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