Image provided by the NFB. Photo Sylvie Van Brabant

November 10, 2021 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

The National Film Board of Canada would like to congratulate Serge Giguère on winning the 2021 Albert Tessier Award, Quebec cinema’s highest honour. The award acknowledges the acclaimed documentary filmmaker’s rich contribution to Quebec culture. Mr. Giguère will receive his award today at 6:00 p.m. at the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City, in the presence of the other 15 Prix du Québec recipients.

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“The NFB is pleased that this prestigious award has been given to one of Quebec’s leading documentary filmmakers, with whom we’ve had the honour of collaborating for many years. Rooted in the tradition of direct cinema, Serge Giguère’s remarkable body of work spans more than half a century,” said Claude Joli-Coeur, Government Film Commissioner and Chairperson of the National Film Board of Canada. “These films serve as keen observers of our society, encountering and respectfully listening to a wide range of original and creative individuals.”

Serge Giguère’s career highlights

• Serge Giguère has directed some 15 documentaries over the past 50 years. He’s also worked as a cameraman on approximately 60 films produced at the NFB and elsewhere, including documentaries by Pierre Perrault, Arthur Lamothe and Maurice Bulbulian.
• In 1984, he formed Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc in association with Sylvie Van Brabant.
• From 1998 to 2001, he was filmmaker-in-residence at the National Film Board of Canada, where he directed Le reel du mégaphone (The Megaphone Reel) in 1999 and Suzor-Coté in 2001.
• In 2006, he filmed À force de rêves (Driven by Dreams, Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc/NFB), which in 2007 won the best documentary award at the Gala Québec Cinéma and the Special Jury Prize for Best Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs in Toronto.
• After Le Nord au cœur (2012), a film about geographer and linguist Louis-Edmond Hamelin, he directed Le mystère Macpherson (Finding MacPherson) in 2014 (Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc/NFB). Winner of the best feature documentary award at the Gala Québec Cinéma, the film offers a whimsical look at the extraordinary creative process behind Martine Chartrand’s animated film MacPherson.
• His most recent film, Les lettres de ma mère (My Mother’s Letters, 2018), received both critical and popular acclaim.
• Serge Giguère has won numerous other awards. These include a Gémeaux Award and three honours for best medium-length film of the year from the Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma for his outstanding portraits of Quebeckers: 9, Saint-Augustin (Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc/NFB, 1996), Le roi du drum (1991) and Oscar Thiffault (1988). He also won the 2008 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for artistic achievement.
• Giguère’s work is unique for being both unpredictable and wide-eyed, disciplined and meticulous. It’s rich in remarkable encounters and intimate moments with people who speak as individuals, yet whose words and actions reveal much about the larger community to which they belong.

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Associated Links

Prix Albert-Tessier

French version here | Version française ici.