Director
Martin Rodolphe Villeneuve
Production
Martin Rodolphe Villeneuve
Language
French
43 min, Fiction, Quebec, Canada, 2011
A frail writer is being haunted by the past of a light-house.
Synopsis
A novelist, André Bertov, seeks inspiration from the fabled storm of Christmas 1966, when 45-feet high waves shook the lighthouse known as The Pillar and traumatized its three wardens. André seeks to write “in context” a short story featuring the survivors of the storm. Captain Dupuis brings André, by boat, to the lighthouse, where he isolates himself for a month, with the papers of his research. As the days go by, the lapping of the waters and the sounds of the Pillar, the evocation of the 1966 drama, monotony, isolation, fog, and the cries of the seagulls make him lose his medication and bearings.
Credits
Screenplay and direction : Martin Rodolphe Villeneuve
Editing : Boran Richard
Image : Claude Bérubé
Sound conception : Martin Allard, Luc Bouchard
Sound recording : Carol Bouchard
Financial partners
Conseil des Arts et des lettres du Québec
Conseil des Arts du Canada
ONF – Aide au Cinéma Indépendant Canada
Martin Rodolphe Villeneuve
Born in Rivière-du-Moulin, Saguenay, Martin Rodolphe made painting studies in several workshops in Chicoutimi. He gradually abandoned painting and enrolled in 1996 at the interdisciplinary program in art at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (UQAC) – concentration cinema and video. During his career, he has attended several training courses at the National Film Board (NFB) and also participated in writing workshops as part of Telefilm Canada program “Écrire au long” at the National Institute of Image and sound (INIS). As a screenwriter and documentary filmmaker, he made several genres, including studies and essays, before finding his true niche: the dreamlike drama.
In 2009, he began a perilous filming on Prince Shoal Lighthouse at the confluence of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the entrance of the Saguenay Fjord. Selected by several festivals, this film entitled Haut-fond Prince (2011) deserved him the Creation Award at the Regard International Short Film Festival in Saguenay in 2012.
In 2016, Martin Rodolphe released a new film called Notre-Dame-des-Monts, a short film of 23 minutes with the assistance of the Arts Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair, for sound dramaturgy in theater of the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi and Canada Council for the Arts.
Devant ton silence, 17 min, Fiction, 2025
Le sang de la terre (De profundis), 84 min, Fiction, 2025
Et si tu m’entends, 16 min, Fiction, 2022
Chants de l’aube, 12 min, Fiction, 2020
Éléonore, 30 min, Fiction, 2018
Qu’en ce jour je meure, 18 min, Fiction, 2017
Notre-Dame-des-Monts, 23 min, Fiction, 2015
Haut-fond Prince, 44 min, Fiction, 2011
Un choral de Mendelssohn, 12 mu, Documentary, 2009
L’aseptie, 25 min, Documentary, 2008
Révérence, 8 min, Fiction, 2007
Dans une heure, 8 min, Experimental, 2005
Le vélocipède à patins, 4 min, Fiction, 2003
Ce qu’il reste, 15 min, Documentary, 2001
Il était quatre fois, 22 min, Fiction, 1998