98 minutes – Comedy
Release date: October 7, 2011
DVD release date: January 24, 2012
Canadian Distributor: TVA Films

This movie is about exactly what the title says. A group of Anglo Canadians eager to learn the language of the other founding people, find themselves in small town Québec. The film centres on the imaginary Centre Linguistique Nationale, located in the imaginary Saint-Isidore-du-Coeur-de-Jésus (St. Isidore of Jesus’ Heart). The school with its pompous, politically charged name is the brainchild of director Sylvie Tremblay (Pascale Bussières), a woman devoted to bringing cash into her economically faltering town. Meanwhile the first clients, who have come to Saint-Isidore from all over Canada, are having trouble adapting to the Centre Linguistique’s and the town’s hardcore nationalist, French Only mindset. The school’s Vice-Principal Pierre-Emile (Yves Jacques) turns out to be a petty tyrant who penalizes students who break the cardinal No English rule by speaking it in their sleep. Full of in-jokes, French Immersion marks the directorial debut of producer Kevin Tierney.

Poster and still courtesy of TVA Films.

Watch Kevin Tierney talk about The Making of French Immersion.