Nicolas Paquet

Co-founder of the production company franC doc, Nicolas Paquet is a documentary filmmaker and producter based in Saint-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska. He has directed several films, including the feature films Chef.fe.s de brousse (2019), Esprit de cantine (2017) and Ceux comme la terre (2014), as well as the short film Les sucriers (2015). His films have been shown in numerous local and international festivals.

Tom Jacques

The artistic work of multi-instrumentalist musician and sound artist Tom Jacques evolves between composition, improvisation, interpretation and sound device design. He works mainly in contemporary music, jazz and percussion. He collaborates with various artists and technicians to design musical instruments and sound installations.

A Rimouski native, Valérie Mongrain has been the general manager of Paralœil since 2013. Earlier in her career, she worked for as a make-up artist for theater, stage and special effects. Passionate about arts and culture, she is dedicated to promoting Quebec cinema and cinematographic creation in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region.

She has also worked at the Carrousel international du film de Rimouski for a few years as director of programming. Valérie Mongrain has taught literature and theater and has been very involved in the field of cultural diffusion. Her charisma and creative spirit have enabled Paralœil to keep up with its mission of pursuing known and renown challenges.

Colette Loumède is a key figure in the world of Canadian documentary film. In her more than 15 years with the NFB, she has produced or co-produced close to 50 films, most of which have been screened at major national and international festivals and won prestigious awards. Her constant search for talent, whether in newcomers or established artists, has led to important contributions in auteur documentary, a form that explores different kinds of narrative approaches to subjects as diverse as investigative geopolitical analysis and stories of complex personal relationships. She has worked at the NFB as producer or co-producer with some of Quebec’s greatest filmmakers: Jacques Godbout (Les héritiers du mouton noir), André Melançon (Printemps fragiles), Serge Giguère (À force de rêves, Le mystère Macpherson), Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie (Trou Story, Le peuple invisible), Patricio Henríquez (Sous la cagoule, un voyage au bout de la torture, Ouïghours, prisonniers de l’absurde), Luc Bourdon (La mémoire des anges, La part du diable), Paule Baillargeon (Trente tableaux), Carole Laganière (Absences), Claude Demers (D’où je viens), Jean-Claude Labrecque (Sur les traces de Maria Chapdelaine), Sophie Deraspe (Le profil Amina), Hugo Latulippe (Alphée des étoiles), Jean-François Caissy (La marche à suivre, Premières armes) and Céline Baril (24 Davids).

In 2018, after 15 years at the NFB, Nathalie Cloutier was appointed Executive Producer of the French Program’s Documentary Studio. She has always championed a flexible creative process and supported a diverse group of auteurs, an approach that has yielded a number of bold endeavours. At the NFB, she’s produced several interactive projects, including Here at Home: In Search of the Real Cost of Homelessness, a multi-award-winning website about homelessness, and The Hole Story Interactive, a website that accompanied the feature-length doc of the same name by Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie. In addition to her work on interactive productions, Nathalie has produced and co-produced numerous feature-length documentaries that have garnered attention both in Canada and internationally. They include The Amina Profile by Sophie Deraspe (Sundance 2015), Gulîstan, Land of Roses by Zaynê Akyol (Doc Alliance Selection Award, Locarno 2016), Freelancer on the Front Lines by Santiago Bertolino (closing film at RIDM 2016), and A Delicate Balance by Christine Chevarie-Lessard (Women Inmates’ Award, RIDM 2018). She also produced Waseskun, by Steve Patry, a Best Feature Length Documentary nominee at the 2017 Canadian Screen Awards. In collaboration with Nadagam Films of Val d’Or, in Quebec’s Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, in 2018 she launched the 5 Shorts Project, for which five local female directors each made a very short documentary for the web. Her most recent productions are Kenbe La: Jusqu’à la Victoire by Will Prosper, Le fond de l’air by Simon Beaulieu and Far from Bashar by Pascal Sanchez.

Nathalie Cloutier first came to work at the NFB as a production coordinator in 2003. After completing the documentary program at the Institut national de l’image et du son (INIS) in Montreal, she returned to the NFB as a producer at the Documentary Studio in 2010. Earlier in her career, she studied arts and literature and collaborated on several theatrical productions. Her experience directing short films for the 1998–1999 season of the Radio-Canada television program Course destination monde inspired her to pursue a career in film.