CANADA | 2022 | DRAMA/THRILLER | 105 MINUTES | 4K

1979. Donald Lavoie is a fearsome hitman who works under the orders of Claude Dubois, head of the Montreal South-West mob. Donald is tasked to take under his wing new recruit Serge Rivard, a hotheaded small-time crook who soon compromises him in a botched double murder. Donald avoids justice thanks to the Dubois clan's lawyers, but this is only a temporary setback for Detective Sergeant Roger Burns, who wants to convince Lavoie to become an informer.

To test his hitman's loyalty, Dubois asks him to eliminate someone close to him. Donald disobeys the order and joins forces with other criminals to finance his exile to South America. Hunted by the Dubois clan on one side and Burns' investigators on the other, Donald finds himself caught in a tightening vise.


Directed by Raymond St-Jean · Written by Martin Girard and Raymond St-Jean
Produced by Paul Cadieux and Michel Ouellette

Starring Éric Bruneau, Benoît Gouin, Rose-Marie Perreault, Simon Landry-Désy, Joakim Robillard and Sylvain Marcel

Raymond St-Jean / Writer and Director

Raymond St-Jean is a director, screenwriter and film and multimedia designer. After studying communications at the Université du Québec à Montréal, he began his career shooting music videos and short films.

Since then, he has directed fictions (Out of Mind: The Stories of H.P Lovecraft, Léa), documentaries (Une chaise pour un ange, L'oiseau de nuit, Ville fantôme, Le Mozart noir, six films in the Musique de chambre collection) and adaptations of plays and choreographies (Les trous du ciel, Cabaret neiges noires, Peepshow). His films have been shown in Canada and abroad, and have been presented in numerous international film festivals.

His next feature film, Dusk for a Hitman, will be released in 2023. The film stars Éric Bruneau, Rose-Marie Perreault, Benoit Gouin and Sylvain Marcel.

His feature documentary A Chair for an Angel was presented in a dozen international festivals. The film won the Best Feature Documentary Award at the 2014 Massachusetts Independent Film Festival, as well as the Golden Eagle Grand Prize at the 2014 IFFEST in Bucharest. At the 32nd Montreal International Festival of Films on Art, A Chair for an Angel won the award for Best Canadian Work and the ICI Artv Award for Best Francophone Canadian Director.

Louise Lecavalier – In Motion, his most recent documentary film, offers a cinematic dive into the work and life of dancer and choreographer Louise Lecavalier.

In 2008, Raymond designed the video projections for Zaia, a Cirque du Soleil show presented in Macao, China. From 2009 to 2011, still for Cirque du Soleil, he was the video and multimedia content designer for Zarkana, presented in New York, Madrid, Moscow and Las Vegas. In 2013, he collaborated on the design and production of the video projections for Michael Jackson ONE, a permanent Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas.

Martin Girard / Writer

After completing studies in Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa and in Film at Concordia University, Martin Girard became a journalist and then a screenwriter.

In the film industry, he was the co-writer and dialogue writer for the feature film Le secret de ma mère, directed by Ghyslaine Côté, for which he received a Genie nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 2007. The same year, his name also appears in the credits of the film Ma fille mon ange by Alexis Durand-Brault (dialogue collaboration). He also wrote the screenplay for the action film Nitro Rush, directed by Alain Desrochers, released in theaters in the summer of 2016. In 2020, he co-wrote with director Bruce LaBruce the feature film Saint-Narcisse, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The film has been selected in about thirty festivals around the world and has been distributed in several markets, including the United States and England.

For television, Martin Girard co-wrote the horror series Lac-Noir (2 seasons on Club Illico), the suspense series Le Jeu (TVA, 2018) and wrote 11 episodes of the comedy series Web Thérapie, broadcast on TV5 in 2015/16; he also wrote 54 episodes of the series Coroner, broadcast on Télé-Québec, as well as episodes of youth series such as La bande magique. He also wrote an episode of the animated series Vie de Quartier, as well as sketches for the series Les Parent.  He also collaborated on the script of the TV movie Cuervo by Carlos Ferrand.

His next feature film, Dusk for a Hitman, co-written with director Raymond St-Jean, will be released in the spring of 2023. Projects in development include the horror film Nervures (co-written with Raymond St-Jean), the feature film Le garçon de passage (co-written with Chloé Cinq-Mars) and the suspense series Coup Fatal, scheduled for release in 2024.

Credits

CREW

Director                                         Raymond St-Jean

Screenplay                                      Martin Girard, Raymond St-Jean

Production                                       Paul Cadieux, Michel Ouellette

Cinematographer       Jean-Francois Lord

Editor                                              Philippe Ralet

Composer                            Gaëtan Gravel

Art Director                         Marie Hélène Lavoie

Wardrobe                            Valérie Gagnon-Hamel

Make-Up                             Kathryn Casault

CAST

Donald Lavoie        Éric Bruneau

Claude Dubois                  Benoît Gouin

Patrick Burns                    Sylvain Marcel

Francine Lavoie                Rose-Marie Perreault

Carl Lavoie                        Simon Landry-Désy

Serge Rivard                      Joakim Robillard

WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF
SODEC, TELEFILM Canada, The Harold Greenberg Fund, Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, Québec Film and Television Tax Credits

PRODUCED IN ASSOCIATION WITH
CRAVE

IN COLLABORAITON WITH
Radio-Canada