Biography
Renowned for giving a voice to those often marginalized by society, Rodrigue Jean forged a reputation as one of the most creative and distinctive filmmakers in Canadian cinema with the likes of road movie "Yellowknife" (2002), family drama "Lost Song" (2008) and street hustling documentary "Men For Sale" (2008). Born in New Brunswick in 1957, Jean began his versatile career in the field of dance in the early '80s before made his first foray into film-making with "La déroute" (1989), a short based on choreography from his own company, Les Productions de l'Os. After receiving a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, he moved to London to study theatre directing where he also formed The Howlers, an acting troupe who performed the works of Shakespeare, Jean Genet and Brad Fraser, and led video workshops at a center for street kids. On returning to his hometown, Jean founded his own film and video production house, Transmar Films, where he made the documentary "La voix des rivières" (1995), and the shorts "La mémoire de l'eau" (1996) and "L'appel" (1998). Jean then moved into full-length feature film territory for "Full Blast" (1999), a well-received adaptation of Martin Pitre's tale of twenty-something life in a blue-collar community, and achieved similar acclaim three years later with "Yellowknife" (2002), a drama in which three sets of strangers weave a tapestry of relationships during a trip to the Great Canadian Northwest. After paying tribute to Arcadian poet Gerald Leblanc in the documentary "Living on the Edge" (2005), Jean won Best Canadian Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival for "Lost Song" (2008), a devastating portrait of a young mother with post-partum depression, and took to the streets of Montreal for "Men For Sale" (2008), an unflinching insight into the world of male prostitution. Jean stuck with the same subject for "Love in the Time of Civil War" (2014), a hard-hitting docu-drama which starred Alexandre Landry as a male hustler constantly in pursuit of that next chemical high.
