Documentary filmmaker Danic Champoux died Friday at the age of 45. A hasty start for this creator who drew his inspiration from direct cinema while placing the human in the foreground.
“He left too soon, he had other things to talk regarding. We will have to do without his unique view of society, it will leave a hole in Quebec, ”drops the knotted throat Patrick Fauquembergue, collaborator and longtime friend of the director.
The pandemic has weakened the filmmaker, and he has fallen back into his addictions which had followed him for a long time, explains Patrick Fauquembergue on the phone. “Drug addiction got the better of him. »
Danic Champoux has signed several works throughout his career, including CHSLD, my love (2020), nominated for Gemini, The girl from the crater (2019), and Mom and Me (2011). He was recognized for his destabilizing films and his great humanity.
The documentary filmmaker is also behind the Urbania web-series Fragments, stories to share. Ten-minute personal accounts in the same vein as his film Self-portrait without me (2014), with an equally bare setting to leave room for testimonials.
In 2001, his first film My father was awarded the prestigious Pierre-et-Yolande-Perrault prize at the Rendez-Vous Québec Cinéma.
A brand forever
“Danic left his mark in Quebec: his films and the unique tone of his works will mark Quebec culture for a long time,” reads a statement from his press officer.
Several actors in the film industry also shared their condolences on social networks on Saturday, while emphasizing “the trace” that the artist leaves behind him.
Hugo Latulippe, documentary filmmaker like Danic Champoux, underlined the deep authenticity that animated his late colleague. “Documenting, immortalizing, small pieces of authentic life. And save them from extinction. You did it with talent Danic. With humanity. The more it went, the more you did it with tact, ”he wrote on his Facebook page.
“Filmmaker with a benevolent and luminous gaze, he will have made his mark by directing more than fifteen award-winning documentaries”, abounds the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada on Twitter.
“At the NFB, we are very affected by the sudden loss of a unique filmmaker, still driven by a deep desire to explore people and society through cinema. We had a project in development with Danic. His listening, his approach and his gaze, attentive as much to the intimate as to the collective, will be missed, “said in a press release Nathalie Cloutier, executive producer of the Documentary Studio of Quebec and of the Canadian and Acadian Francophonie of the ONF.
With Jean-Louis Bordeleau
