– Unprecedented DRAMA in the press…
– The journalist Marc-André Lussier is dead.
– We are speechless…
– One of the greatest journalists in the province has died.
– Here is the press release written by his good friend André Duchesne.
– Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.
Marc-André had been with La Presse for 45 years. He was passionate. Cultivated. Competently. Work. Curious. Extremely beautiful. A golden colleague. We will miss him. https://t.co/TMtyEVfoQD
— Alexander Pratt (@alexandrepratt) July 3, 2023
The entire La Presse team mourns the death of its most important film critic of the last twenty years, Marc-André Lussier. The latter, who was recovering from heart surgery, was found dead at his home on Friday morning. He was 63 years old.
Friend, colleague, hard worker who never counted his hours, Marc-André was above all a supernatural lover of the seventh art. Just a few weeks ago, he returned from the Cannes Film Festival, where he accurately predicted the winners of the Palme d’Or, the Grand Jury Prize and the Jury Prize, which is equivalent to a full podium.
Our colleague was also the oldest employee at La Presse, where he worked for 45 years. He joined the advertising department on June 6, 1978. At the same time, he was always engaged and attracted to art. As a singer, he was a semi-finalist at the Festival de la chanson de Granby in the 1980s.
At the same time, his love of cinema, which he revealed on his travels since his youth, including the films of François Truffaut, prompted him to read countless film reviews and to write down his own impressions of the films he had seen.
In 1988 he began hosting the film show Special Screening on CIBL radio with several collaborators including Bruno Boulianne and Patrick Masbourian. He also receives on the air a young filmmaker named Denis Villeneuve.
From 1995 he began to write his first articles in La Presse. During the day he worked in the advertising department. And at the end of the day he went from the 4th to the 3rd floor of the rue Saint-Antoine building to write his reports and reviews.
Marc-André was hired in 2000 as a journalist in the art department. In 2001 he took part in the Cannes Film Festival for the first time. He took the opportunity to create the famous Cannoiseries column, a series of short stories about the Croisette that delighted our readers.
He has also been to every major festival over the years, from Toronto to Berlin, from the Venice Film Festival to Karlovy Vary. In Montreal he experienced the heyday of the World Film Festival. His career also took him to many film sets.
From Denys Arcand to Woody Allen, from Catherine Deneuve to Pascale Bussières, via Wong Kar-Wai, the Dardenne brothers, Monique Mercure and others, Marc-André has interviewed hundreds of filmmakers, actors, cinematographers and other cinema artists.
Author of four books, he co-hosted the program À l’annonce ce Semaine on Télé-Québec with his good friend Marc Cassivi.
La Presse extends its condolences to his family, friends, colleagues and everyone who had the honor and fortune to know him.