Jean-Marc Vallée

JeanMarc Valle made his groundbreaking feature debut with Liste Noire aka Black List in 1995. The strikingly stylish erotic thriller was a first for its genre in Québec cinema and was honoured with nine Genie Award nominations. Ten years later he returned to French language features with the internationally acclaimed hit C.R.A.Z.Y. Blending a beguiling coming-of-age tale with a magical ode to outsiders of all ages, the powerful yet poignant film is an intensely personal story that embraced universal themes and went on to become a phenomenon. It was distributed in over fifty countries and won some twenty international festival awards, 11 Genie Awards, 15 Jutra Awards and the Golden Reel Award as Canada’s top performer at the domestic box office. Valle flirted with Hollywood when he made Strangers in 1996 and Los Locos in 1997, as well as completing the first two instalments of his short film trilogy Les Fleurs magiques (1995) and Les Mots magiques (1998). Both shorts were awarded numerous festival prizes at home and abroad. His 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It received 6 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture but Valle was overlooked for a Best Director award. It went on to win Oscars for Best Actor Matthew McConaughey and Best Supporting Actor Jared Leto and Best Makeup. His 2015 film Demolition was selected as the opening Gala film at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. Valle picked up an Emmy in 2017 for his work directing the series Big Little Lies. He was 58 when he died near Québec City according to a publicist with his production company.

Also see: Remembering Jean-Marc Vallée
Also see: Canadians and The Emmy
Also see: Turn and Face the Strange: Jean-Marc Vallée’s CRAZY.