When André “Dédé” Fortin met French harmonist Patrick Esposito di Napoli in their artists’ commune building at 2116 Boulevard St-Laurent in Montreal in the early 1990s, the stars lined up and saw the birth of the now legendary group Les colocs.
The rapid departure of Patrick, who was killed by AIDS, and the suicide of Dédé a few years later profoundly shaped the cultural landscape of the late 1990s and 2000s.
Director Jean-François Poisson, who released Marie-Soleil and Jean-Claude: Beyond the Stars last year, returns to Vrai these days with a new documentary, Dédé et Patrick: Au beyond the Stars, this time focusing on the Complex and profound relationship that connected these two artists.
“The idea wasn’t to make a documentary about Les Colocs,” warned the director during an interview with QMI Agency.
“What interested me was the human journey of these two people,” he said, stressing that he had the idea for his film while he was conceiving the film about Marie-Soleil Tougas and Jean-Claude Lauzon.
“I found it interesting to keep hearing the stories of two artists, one well-known and the other lesser-known, and telling their contradictory destinies,” he argued.
Photo François Boucher courtesy of Vrai
In his new 90-minute documentary, he offers a moving look back at the life of Dédé Fortin (his birth in the countryside, his cinema studies and his musical debut with Cha Cha & The Chain Gang) and Patrick Esposito di Napoli (his youth). in France, his drug addiction, his arrival in Quebec).
The whole thing is brought to light – with a lot of nostalgia, without falling into the sensational trap of the events – through testimonies from people who knew them, including family members, musicians, archive material and excerpts from interviews.
The director draws a parallel portrait of the two men, who are however very different, and highlights each man’s character, his experiments, his love life and his desires.
The intensity of Dédé and the urgency of the reception
In their dynamic duo, Dédé was the hyperactive, the intense, the one who doesn’t do things by halves. He wasn’t the best musician, but he worked hard until he was successful. Patrick was a quiet, gentle, almost easygoing man and a self-taught musical prodigy. His first health concerns related to HIV, which he contracted through a dirty syringe years before leaving France, may have arisen before the release of the group’s first album.
So it became urgent for Dédé to record her songs to make Patrick’s dream come true before it’s too late. He finally died in 1994, just over a year after the release of the first CD, which was a real hit.
Photo François Boucher courtesy of Vrai
“The loss of Pat in André Fortin’s life was something extremely difficult. He never wanted to replace him [au sein du groupe]. Dédé told me, “No, it’s like I’m going to get divorced and remarried the next day,” said former Roommates (1990-1997) drummer Jimmy Bourgoing in particular in the documentary.
The death of his friend and defeat in the 1995 referendum deeply affected the leader of the Quebec formation. The distance from his dream of making films, his unstable love, exhaustion, depression and several other factors led André quietly and secretly into the dark for fear of being hospitalized again for a mental disorder.
“It was at a time when we didn’t talk much about mental health. He felt feelings he couldn’t put into words, and even his friends couldn’t put them into words. Today we probably would have seen things differently,” the director continued.
Dédé and Patrick: Beyond the Stars will settle on Vrai on Tuesday.