La Presse interviews ELAN’s Guy Rodgers: “Effervescence chez les artistes anglos”

Alexandre Vigneault has an excellent column in today’s La Presse about the vitality of Montreal’s anglo arts scene in recent years. He refers to the new book Minority Report: An Alternate History of Quebec’s English-Language Arts Scene (Available through Guernica Editions), and interviews ELAN executive director Guy Rodgers.

I’ve translated the article below. You can read the complete original article on LaPresse.ca.

-Posted by Geoff

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Anglo-Montreal writers are not only numerous, many are popular internationally, including Trevor Ferguson, also known by his pseudonym John Farrow. PHOTO: ANDRÉ PICHETTE, ARCHIVES LA PRESSE

Translated from Effervescence chez les artistes anglos by Alexandre Vigneault for La Presse, 24 November 2011. (Translation by ELAN)

Renowned music scene, award-winning writers, bubbling theatre milieu, anglo-Montreal culture is experiencing a resurgence. This dynamism coincides with the first growth in the number of anglophones in Quebec in the past 30 years, according to the book Minority Report.

During the first half-decade of the 2000s, the number of anglophones rose by 2.7% in Quebec, according to 2006 Census data. The observation represents not only a reversal of the exodus begun in 1976 — it is also one of the factors contributing to the renewal of the Anglo-Montreal artistic scene, according to the essays collected in Minority Report.

“This increase isn’t limited to the artistic community, but among artists there has been enormous growth,” notes Guy Rodgers, director of the English-Language Arts Network (ELAN), an organisation founded in 2005 to bring together Quebec’s anglophone artists. The percentage of artists in the anglo-Montreal community (0.99%) is higher than the Canadian (0.65%) and Quebec (0.56%) averages, as noted in a Canadian Heritage report.

In recent years, the effervescence of anglo-Montreal creation has been emphasized by the international success of Arcade Fire. Minority Reports stresses that this phenomenon is not limited to the music milieu: the theatre scene experienced an unimaginable vitality 25 years ago, writes Marianne Ackerman, and this holds for the litterary community as well.

CARFAC encourages including resale rights in Canada’s new copywright law

Excerpts from Droit de suite – Les artistes veulent profiter de la revente de leurs oeuvres, Le Devoir (23 November 2011)
(Translation by ELAN)

The Canadian Artists’ Representation/Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC) is taking advantage of the month of November, rich in sales at auction, to once again encourage the Harper government to integrate resale rights in its new copyright law. Resale rights would permit artists to receive 5% of the resale price on successive sales of their artworks at auction houses and commercial galleries.
(…)
CARFAC estimates that auction sales of Canadian artworks netted $18.7 M for Heffel and Sotheby’s in November 2010. Royalties of 5% would have permitted living artists to collect $106 095. By comparison, auction houses impose a commission on both sellers and buyers, running anywhere from 10-25%  and 15-20% respectively, according to CARFAC.

In 1920, France was the first jurisdiction to introduce resale rights. Today more than 59 countries have enshrined resale rights in their laws, including the members of the European Union.

Continue reading this article at
http://www.ledevoir.com/culture/actualites-culturelles/336721/droit-de-suite-les-artistes-veulent-profiter-de-la-revente-de-leurs-oeuvres

Read CARFAC’s press release on the issue at
http://www.carfac.ca/2011/11/artists-to-miss-out-on-resale-right-payments-at-three-upcoming-auctions/

French radio host asks Anglo filmmaker ‘La question qui tue’

Excerpt from French radio host fires loaded question at Jacob Tierney, by Brendan Kelly for The Gazette

Jacob Tierney's new movie, Good Neighbours, is based on Quebec writer Chrystine Brouillet's novel Chère voisine. Photograph by: Dave Sidaway, The Gazette

To steal a line from Tout le monde en parle, it was most definitely La question qui tue.

It came a few minutes into Jacob Tierney’s interview on top-rated radio morning show C’est bien meilleur le matin on La Première Chaine of Radio-Canada a few days back. The anglo Montreal filmmaker was there to talk about his new movie, Good Neighbours, a darkly comic Hitchockian murder mystery that opens Friday, and host René Homier-Roy asked Tierney why his N.D.G.-set movie – which stars Jay Baruchel, Scott Speedman and Emily Hampshire – didn’t better represent the cultural diversity of this west-end borough.

It was, to put it mildly, one heckuva a loaded question. You don’t need to be a film critic to understand why Homier-Roy was taking Tierney to task on this point. I’ve never heard a radio or TV host ever ask a Québécois filmmaker why his or her movie wasn’t representative enough of Montreal’s multicultural mosaic.

But Tierney faces this hot-button question – and probably always will in Montreal – because he is the guy who dared to say publicly last summer that francophone Québécois cinema has not done enough to represent anglos and other minority groups.

He’s absolutely right, and he’s not the first person to say this. But he was the first anglophone filmmaker to say it and that’s why he was roundly lambasted on radio call-in shows and in no small number of newspaper columns.

A couple of hours later the same morning, in a café just up the street from the Radio-Canada tower, Tierney talked about La question qui tue.

“That’s a very particular way of looking at diversity,” Tierney said.

“I think a movie where you have native actors, Jewish characters, Chinese people … look it’s a small movie and I’m not going to try to list off all the nationalities that exist in it. I don’t want to get into this stuff again, but I think it’s plenty diverse. To tell me that Good Neighbours is not diverse. I call a huge bullish– on that.”

Continue reading on www.montrealgazette.com/…/

Fagstein blog analyses Epic Meal Time on Tout le monde en parle

Just tripped across an excellent Fagstein blog post from last month breaking down the heightened response to Epic Meal Time’s appearance on Tout le monde en parle (scroll to bottom for video of the show). The West Islanders conducted the interview in English and response was swift. Even though this is an old story, we thought the Fagstein analysis was worth sharing. Click the title for the complete article, which includes highlights of the flood of Twitter response, video responses from Youtube, and discussion of education policies, anglo guilt, entre autres… Definitely worth a read.

Un souper presque Epic (excerpt)
April 14, 2011

(…)

I put in a request with Epic Meal Time’s agent (yes, they have one), but have heard nothing yet. For the sake of argument, let’s assume they’re like me and many others from the West Island and that they went to English public school. Let’s also assume they know some French but not enough to have an in-depth conversation.

It makes me wonder if I would have been judged so harshly if I had been on the Plateau of this show, and with a mix of nervousness and a desire to be clear I had asked that the interview be done in English. My conversational French is okay, but my grammar is awful. There’s a reason I don’t blog in French often. I have too much respect for the language to expose people to my destruction of it.

That in mind, it seems perfectly understandable that two guys from the West Island who make Internet videos aren’t the best French speakers and prefer to express themselves in the language they’re most comfortable in.

And yet, it bothered me.

It wasn’t so much that they were talking in English. But they had earpieces during the interview, which means they needed the questions to be translated. That’s kind of a depressing statement about the state of French-language education in English schools in Quebec (again, assuming that’s how they were educated).

But even that didn’t bug me as much as this: They didn’t even try.

One thing I’ve learned about Quebec’s French language protectors (at least the reasonable moderate ones) is that they appreciate effort. It’s the thought that counts.

When Brian Gionta introduced the Canadiens at the beginning of the season in quite possibly the most atrocious French anyone has ever heard this side of an Alberta public school, the fans appreciated it. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t pronounce the numbers right or that he called Maxim Lapierre “Maxim Laperrière”. He acknowledged that French is the language spoken here and he wanted to make an effort, if only a tiny one, to speak to them in that language.

But Morenstein and Toth couldn’t manage even a “bonsoir” or a “merci”, perhaps because they were playing their tough-guy characters, or perhaps because they just didn’t care and had no respect for the show, the host or the audience they were addressing.

Epic Meal Time's Harley Morenstein and Sterling Toth on Tout le monde en parle (photo: Karine Dufour for Radio-Canada)

The language of poutine

It’s funny because Epic Meal Time has probably been one of the best ambassadors for Quebec cuisine of the past decade. Just two days before taping TLMEP, they released this video of them heading into the woods and preparing a meal that included tourtière and tire sur la neige (words that Morenstein utters in slightly accented but perfectly understandable French).

One of their earliest videos was of the Angry French Canadian, a “meal” that included poutine, steamés and maple syrup on a baguette.

They’re not exactly promoting Quebec as the healthiest place in the world to eat, but they’re not hiding where they come from either. If it wasn’t for the language thing, you’d think they were the most proud Quebecers you’d ever seen.

Except that in Quebec, everything is a language thing. (…)

Continue reading the original article here: http://blog.fagstein.com/…/epic-meal-time-on-tlmep

Watch the original Tout le monde en parle interview here:

Montreal’s Jessica Paré works her French-Canuck connection on ‘Mad Men’

Jessica Paré, Globe and Mail

By GAYLE MACDONALD for Globe and Mail, Published Monday, Apr. 04, 2011

The first time Mad Men creator Matt Weiner laid eyes on Montreal-born actress Jessica Paré, who had a teeny part at the start of season four, he was bowled over by the exotic image she presented in a pencil-thin red suit, and declared: “You look like a French movie star.”

The Quebec native tells this story with an embarrassed laugh, adding that the praise was appreciated, but somewhat effusive, given she had all of one line of dialogue. “I knew I had the French part down,” says a smiling Paré, who shares some of the late Elizabeth Taylor’s dark, luminous beauty. “But to be called a movie star? Well, all I could say was thank you.”

VIDEO: Click image to watch CP Video interview with Jessica Paré.

But there was something about the actress’s Canadian-ness – the fact that she spoke French and hailed from a distinct culture – that captivated Weiner, who as season four progressed, gave Paré meatier scenes as the dashing Don Draper’s secretary Megan, and eventually, his paramour.

“I think it tickled his fancy that I had a different heritage,” says the bilingual Paré, whose film credits include titles such as Denys Arcand’s Stardom and her friend Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky. “Matt does take stuff from his actors’ lives. So he kept my experience growing up in Quebec and incorporated it into the script. So Megan comes from Montreal. She speaks French to her mom on the phone. And, who knows, maybe she’ll introduce Sterling Cooper to poutine,” she says with a laugh. (Mad Men celebrates her Canuck status in the same way the Vancouver-born character Robin talks Tim Hortons, frequents The Hoser Hut pub, and wears Vancouver Canuck goalie Roberto Luongo’s jersey in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother.)

Continue reading on www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/television/…/

Junos & ADISQ make habit of ignoring other side of linguistic divide

Win Butler and Arcade Fire perform their song "Rococo" at the 2011 Juno Awards at Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Sunday evening, March 27, 2011. The 2011 Juno Awards, hosted by Toronto native Drake, are celebrating their 40th anniversary. Photograph by: Peter J Thompson, NATIONAL POST Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Arcade+Fire+said+best+Wake/4552937/story.html#ixzz1IZOoZfzt

Source: www.montrealgazette.com/…/

Arcade Fire said it best: Wake up

The Junos and the ADISQ gala have each made a habit of ignoring important acts on the other side of the linguistic divide By BRENDAN KELLY, The Gazette, April 4, 2011

I sense a trend here. First you have the ADISQ gala and its downright strange snubbing of Arcade Fire. Here is Montreal’s – heck, the world’s – hottest rock band, and the annual Quebec music awards have never even tossed the celebrated group a measly nomination, never mind an actual Félix trophy. Weird.

Then there’s the recent Jutra awards giving the cold shoulder to two anglo movies, The Trotsky and Barney’s Version, and one multicultural drama, Sortie 67. Some of us figured those movies were not getting much love from the Quebec awards at least partly because the flicks are not pure laine enough for the Jutra voters.

Then the Juno awards come along and happily ignore the booming franco Québécois music scene. Now, I don’t expect the Junos to be a fluently bilingual affair, but for something that proudly calls itself “Canada’s music awards,” it’s bizarre to realize that its 40th-anniversary edition on March 27 did not feature a single francophone performer, or even a mot or two en français.

Even Arcade Fire, who dominated the awards, went unilingual English for the night. This after they made quite an impression by giving a shout-out to Montreal in both English and French at the Grammys in February.

So what’s the trend? Awards shows on both sides of the linguistic/cultural divide are ignoring what’s happening on the other side of the Berlin Wall-like separation that appears to be between Canada’s two major cultures.

Read more: www.montrealgazette.com/…/

ELAN RAEV Launch Party!

The event, which will showcase the works of 154 artists, is titled Recognizing Artists: Enfin Visible! (RAEV). The launch is free, open to the public and includes refreshments and munchies.

Read More at: MontrealGazette.com

Hip Hop Karaoke: No freestylin’ and no N-word but ALL good fun!

While the word karaoke might bring to mind cringeworthy renditions of My Heart Will Go On, Hip Hop Karaoke is first and foremost a party, a chance for fans to pay homage to their favourite artists and step into their shoes for the duration of one song. There’s no teleprompter with a ball bouncing over the words to ABBA songs – just a mike, a lyric sheet if needed, and even a hype man of your very own to back you up.

Read more at MontrealGazette.com

Roger Abbott of the Royal Canadian Airfarce Dies

Ferguson said Abbott, 64, was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia 14 years ago, but he kept his battle with the disease a secret from all but a few close friends and family until a week ago.

Read more at: MontrealGazette.com

Junos: Arcade Fire Cleans Up

While Arcade Fire was the early story of the night, a Canadian icon also made his mark among the younger crowd. Neil Young, who released the album Le Noise in September, earned the adult alternative album of the year and was slated to be honoured with the Allan Waters Humanitarian Prize. Later in the show, Young was also poised to go up against Drake and Justin Bieber for the coveted artist of the year award.

Read more at: MontrealGazette.com