Nicole Robert had no production experience when Rock Demers recruited her to produce with him in the early 1980s. The Tuque Warthe first film of his famous series of stories for everyone. The click was instantaneous: “I knew right away that this was my seat,” the producer admits Karmina, Quebec-Montreal and white dogwhich celebrates its 40th anniversary in the film industry this year.
“What does a producer do?” With the frankness of her youth, Nicole Robert asked Rock Demers that question when the late producer offered her a job alongside him just before filming the cult film La guerre des tuques.
A graduate of the School of Fine Arts in graphic design, Ms. Robert never thought of working as a producer. She had just launched her own animation box, Animabec, after helping to create a clip for the Robert Charlebois song Quebec Love.
“I told Rock first that I would think about it because I just started my company,” she says in an interview with the Journal.
“But he came back to the charge by offering me to be vice president of Productions La Fête. I embarked on the adventure. He didn’t know how to produce and I didn’t know how to produce. But he had that visionary side to create a Tales for All project that revolutionized children’s film production in Quebec and even around the world. So I had the chance to start my career as a producer with great success. And I also realized that this is what I wanted to do in life.
However, Nicole Robert did not stay with Productions La Fête for long. After producing alongside Rock Demer’s La guerre des tuques and Opération beurre de pinottes, the young producer set out to develop her own projects by founding her company Lux Films. Laura Laur, his first solo feature film in 1989, claims to have been one of the most complicated of his career.
“I almost lost my life there,” she admits. I couldn’t finance it. I even put my house up for sale. And in the end the film didn’t quite work out…”
After this commercial failure, the producer quickly got back on track, producing in quick succession Requiem pour un beau sans-coeur and Windigo by Robert Morin, then Gabriel Pelletier’s comedy Karmina, which was a huge hit with audiences in 1996. In 2000, she teamed up with Pelletier to form a new production company called Go Films with Richard Speer and Jacques Langlois.
Empower the next generation
Also around the turn of the millennium, Nicole Robert had a career-changing encounter. The producer then sought out an aspiring filmmaker to direct an adaptation of Principe du Geyser, a novel by Stéphane Bourguignon. Columnist Michel Coulombe recommended that he watch the first short films by a certain Ricardo Trogi.
“Ricardo had a remarkable boldness and accuracy in speaking about the men of his generation,” recalls Nicole Robert. We developed the geyser principle together, but it didn’t work. I asked him if he had another script and he told me about Quebec-Montreal. It was the beginning of a beautiful and long collaboration. Ricardo was my king!” starts the one who produced all the films written by Trogi, including Biological Clock and 1991.
Nicole Robert has always had an eye on launching the careers of young filmmakers. Alongside Ricardo Trogi, she produced the first feature films by Éric Tessier (Sur le Threshold), Yves Pelletier (Les Aimants), Patrice Sauvé (Cheech) and Yves-Christian Fournier (Tout est parfait). .
Despite recently selling her Go Films box set, Nicole Roberts has no plans to retire just yet. She is currently developing several projects in parallel, including an English-language series based on a novel by Patrick Senécal, Le Vide.
“I’m an active person in life, so I don’t know what I would do if I quit. I love this job too much to stop,” she concludes.
The film white dog is currently showing.
Nicole Robert in 10 Notable Movies:
The Tuque Warby André Melançon (1984)
Requiem for a heartless handsome manby Robert Morin (1992)
carmineby Gabriel Pelletier (1996)
Quebec-Montrealby Ricardo Trogi (2002)
In front of the front doorby Eric Tessier (2003)
The magnetsby Yves Pelletier (2004)
Everything is perfectby Yves Christian Fournier (2008)
nellyby Anne Emond (2016)
sympathy for the devilby Guillaume de Fontenay (2019)
white dogby Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette (2022)