Antoine Bertrand, who grew up with Tales for All, admits he was touched when he received the script Miss Bottinethe new version of the famous family film Bach and Bottine. “When I saw the Productions La Fête logo, I had a feeling,” says the 46-year-old actor, who he met on the set of the new feature film.
Les Productions La Fête is the company founded in 1980 by Rock Demers, the man behind the films in the popular Contes pour tous series, including La guerre des tuques, Opération butter de pinottes and Bach et Bottine.
After several years of inactivity, the franchise was recently revived by producer Dominic James with the release of the film Farmhouse earlier this year. Mlle Bottine, a reinterpretation of André Melançon’s classic starring Mahée Paiement and Raymond Legault, is the second feature film in the new era of Tales for All.
“For someone of my generation, it is something special to star in a film by Productions La Fête,” emphasizes Antoine Bertrand, who met on Wednesday behind the scenes of the Cinéma Impérial, where filming of Mlle Bottine ended on Wednesday.
“But for me it is also a lifeline to open our cinema to a new audience. When I saw Coco nearby, I said to myself: Okay, this is where it has to go. Because we grew up with these films and never asked ourselves whether Quebec cinema existed. But today the reality is different. Like the competition [venant de l’étranger] is very strong, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we don’t start targeting young audiences again.”
Pierre-Paul Poulin / Le Journal de Montréal / Agence QMI
The opposite of him
In Mlle Bottine, Antoine Bertrand takes on the role of Philippe, an opera composer lacking inspiration who is forced to take in his niece (Marguerite Laurence), a rebellious and eccentric orphan whose best friend is a skunk. The actor of Louis Cyr does not hide the fact that this character is the exact opposite of him.
“Philippe is socially anxious and I am the opposite of an anxious person,” he says with a laugh.
“It’s a big challenge for me because it’s not the kind of character I’ve gotten to play very often. And I have no choice to let him live in me in life because he is so far away from me. I have already warned my wife that he is not easy to live with!”
His Philippe may be “difficult to live with,” but Antoine Bertrand clearly has great fun playing him. He could be seen on the film set clowning around with two young actors, Mateo Laurent Matériaux Daigle and Marguerite Laurence.
“On the days that Antoine is there, we count the illnesses, because he is the king of illnesses!” exclaims Marguerite Laurence, who we have already seen in the 5th series series.
And what about Miss Bottine, Simone’s character’s beloved skunk? Two skunks were chosen for the performance. “But there is one who bites!” states Marguerite Laurence.
Pierre-Paul Poulin / Le Journal de Montréal / Agence QMI
To read
Director Yan Lanouette Turgeon (“Rock-Paper-Scissors”) sees Mlle Bottine not as a “remake” of the 1986 film, but as a reinterpretation. Dominic James, who wrote the screenplay, took the main threads of the original story and incorporated several new elements and characters.
“Dominic did a really good job of taking what had already been done and taking it to other places,” explains the director.
“I’m not sure it would have been interesting to remake the same film. As for me, the script really captivated me from the first read, and if it weren’t for the skunk, I probably wouldn’t have recognized the original material. We don’t want to do the same thing again. It really is a re-read.”
Filming for Mlle Bottine began on September 20th and will continue until November 9th. The film also stars Mani Soleymanlou, Marilyn Castonguay, Benoît Gouin, Louise Turcot and Jean-François Provençal.