Catherine Brunet admits to having engaged in “emotional blackmail” with her agent when she learned a few years ago that a feature film inspired by the cult short film Farador was in the pipeline: “I told him: ‘If I don’t act in this film, I’m going to die! ‘ the actress starts laughing.
Catherine Brunet admits she “emotionally blackmailed” her agent when she learned a feature film inspired by the cult short Farador was in the pipeline a few years ago. “I told him, ‘If I don’t act in this film, I’ll die! ‘ the actress starts laughing.
His manipulation technique paid off. Catherine Brunet not only landed a role in Farador, she’s also one of the headliners in the fantastic comedy, which was released across Quebec yesterday.
For those who don’t know, Farador is a film adaptation of a short film of the same title that went viral on YouTube in the late 2000s.
Like many others, Catherine Brunet fell under the spell of this little film that director Édouard A. Tremblay (Phylactère Cola) cobbled together in 2006.
“When I was young, I was really a fan of short films,” she says. I knew lines by heart. It was still one of the first viral videos in Quebec. It’s legendary! »
“game fan”
Filmed in Quebec and Normandy (for the medieval scenes), Farador stars Charles (Éric K. Boulianne), Guillaume (Lucien Ratio) and Louis (Benoit Drouin-Germain), three “adults” who have turned out to be regular gamblers for the past 18 years Meet Farador, a medieval role-playing game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. The homecoming of Kim (Catherine Brunet), Charles’ sister, will disrupt the lives of the three friends and roommates.
Like the film’s three main characters, Catherine Brunet describes herself as a “fan of gambling”.
She regularly attends game nights, most notably with filmmaker Francis Leclerc (The Diver).
“I’m also a genre film and literature geek,” she adds. So I can understand the characters in the film to some extent. But their problem is that they’ve been playing the same game for 18 years and they’re just doing it with their lives! »
A first in Quebec
According to Catherine Brunet, Farador has what it takes to reach young Quebec moviegoers who love geek culture and genre cinema.
“We’ve never seen this type of film in Quebec,” she recalls. Obviously we don’t have the same budgets as Marvel productions. But I think in this humor there is a way to do something that young people care about. I hope people will see it in theaters because it would prove that we are capable of making genre films too. »
Farador’s world premiere in early March, at the end of Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, allowed him to see that the film’s humor resonated with those who had already seen the 2006 short film, but also with those who had already seen it were totally unaware of the phenomenon.
“After the screening, I could see that people loved the film,” says the actress. It showed in her eyes. Everyone came over to tell me how much they were enjoying it and I felt there was something magical and electric about the room.
“Then we presented the feature film at the Canadian Film Festival in Dieppe, France, where we won the audience award. I thought no one would understand because the film is full of Quebec expressions. But in the end they gave us the audience award. It’s a good sign. »
Catherine Brunet has just finished dubbing the Quebec animated film The Legend of the Butterfly, which will also feature the voices of Sophie Cadieux, Julie Le Breton, Ludivine Reding and Antoine Desrochers. She will be spending the next two months in the Magdalen Islands filming in the detective series Detective Strain: The Stone-Eyed Girl alongside Patrick Hivon, Patrice Godin and Marie-France Marcotte.
- The film Farador opens Friday