The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster is “a predictable tragedy that could easily have been avoided,” says director Philippe Falardeau in his documentary series Lac Mégantic – that’s no coincidencewhich lands on the Vrai platform on May 2nd and whose trailer will be unveiled this morning.
In this series, divided into four one-hour episodes, Philippe Falardeau (Le temps des raspberries, Monsieur Lazhar) met several speakers (surviving families but also railway industry experts) who agreed to revisit the events that preceded them up to that terrible night of July 6, 2013.
While the drama series Mégantic, launched last month on Club illico, made us experience the tragedy through the eyes of victims and survivors, Philippe Falardeau’s documentary series attempts to demonstrate that the accident theory is unfounded.
Rather, this catastrophe, which claimed 47 innocent victims, is the direct result of a “system that continues to put corporate profits ahead of the common good,” the filmmaker tries to demonstrate in his series.
Photo archive, Chantal Poirier
Director Philippe Falardeau
“I could go further and say that not only was it predictable and preventable, but it could happen again,” Falardeau said in an interview. We saw it recently [le déraillement d’un train] in Ohio. »
Philippe Falardeau spent more than four years researching and conducting interviews for this documentary series. The idea of dealing with the topic came to him a few years ago when he was cycling past a train track every morning on his way to take his daughter to daycare.
“I thought back to Mégantic and I said to myself that a few years after the tragedy, the problems of railway safety and the transport of dangerous goods were surely solved,” he recalls.
“But when I read Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny’s book Mégantic: a tragedy foretaged, I realized that nothing was fully resolved. It was a shock to find out. And after the shock came anger. I think the desire to do the documentary came out of that anger. »
stimulate debate
Like the team behind the Mégantic series a few weeks ago, Philippe Falardeau will travel to Mégantic on April 11th to present the first two episodes of his documentary to the people of Mégantic. The filmmaker will then fly to Cannes to attend the international premiere of his series at the Canneseries event.
If he doesn’t believe documentaries have the power to change things, Philippe Falardeau hopes his series will challenge citizens enough to bring the debate to the public square.
“The railroad passes through many cities in Quebec, and hazardous materials continue to pass through these communities,” he laments. We will have to start asking ourselves the question: are we waiting for the next disaster or are we changing things now? »