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Boisjoli film wins at Sundance
Evren Boisjoli 2008 said he was “absolutely stunned” when he learned in January that Fauve, a new film he co-produced, had won the special jury award for live action short films at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
Filmed in Quebec, Fauve is shot in a surface mine, where two boys sink into a seemingly innocent power game, with Mother Nature as the sole observer.
Directed by Jeremy Comte and coproduced by Evren and Maria Gracia Turgeon, Fauve is one of 69 films selected from over 9000 films submitted to Sundance. “I was speechless to receive the news and I’m still stunned sharing this with all my friends and family who supported me and my films,” Evren said.
The Sundance Film Festival, founded in 1981 by actor Robert Redford, takes place annually in Park City, Utah, and is the largest independent film festival in the United States. The 2018 festival ran from January 18 through 28.
Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and new media to create and thrive. The Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally.
Selwyn House teachers Dan Elbling and Samarah Sayegh, who have seen Fauve, described it as “haunting” and “unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
But Sundance is not the only festival where the film has been screened. There are a lot of film festivals out there these days, and recently Evren and his associates have had a film in a festival somewhere almost every day.
“We’ve won an award at almost every major festival except Seattle,” he says, including festivals in Vienna and Aspen and Palm Springs.
“We’re probably going to do an Oscar run next year,” Evren told Veritas. This would involve hiring a publicist and negotiating to have Fauve seen by enough Academy voters to get shortlisted and launch the campaign to be nominated.
Evren has a lot of other projects in the
works as well. He and director Jeremy Comte are presently scouting locations and actors in Ghana for a live-action feature-length film with the working title Overseas that he describes as a comingof-age story that parallels the adventures of a young man in Ghana with those of a young man in Quebec.
And that’s not all. Another new film they are calling The Migrant Project deals with refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa who endure one of the most dangerous sea crossings in the world to travel from Libya to Italy. He describes it as a multimedia documentary that will deal with the brutality suffered by many refugees, who, he says, are often threatened with slavery or murder. Shooting should take place in 2019 and 2020.
“Both these projects give back and illustrate an issue, with the goal of changing people’s minds about immigrants,” Evren says.
Aside from these films, Evren’s personal career is taking flight. In May he was one of six Quebec producers chosen by Société de développement des entreprises culturelles to attend the Cannes Film Festival, which he says is “one of the best festivals to attend” for making international contacts in the industry.
Back home, he was recently accepted by the Canadian Film Centre as one of five producers invited to take part in a five-month professional development program.
