13 Feb Adapting a literary work on screen
13
Feb
Adapting a literary work on screen
Workshop - Fiction - Winter 2025
Thursday February 13, 2025
6 pm - 9 pm
Main Film
2025 Rue Parthenais #301, Montréal, Quebec, H2K 3T2, Québec
With Simon Lavoie (Se fondre, Norbourg, Nulle trace)
Member $60 | Non-member $90
Literature and cinema are arts with fundamental differences. Adapting a literary work means reinventing the story in depth.
In this workshop, you’ll discover how to take a story and turn it into a screenplay. You’ll learn how to put into images a style, a discourse, an atmosphere based on literary works without losing their nature, and tackle the legal aspects. Various examples will be presented to illustrate this. At the end of this workshop, you’ll be ready to exploit new sources to enrich your creation.
The workshop will be given in French but questions may be asked in English.
The Fiction cycle continues through the winter! To see the full program, please visit the Events & Workshops page. For other information, please send an email to: services@mainfilm.qc.ca
Simon Lavoie
Ⓒ Matthieu Brouillard
A native of Quebec’s Charlevoix region, Simon Lavoie studied film at UQAM. From 2003 to 2007, he directed several acclaimed short films, including Une chapelle blanche, for which he won the Jutra for Best Short Film in 2006. In 2008, he wrote and directed his first feature, Le déserteur, Suis ensuit Laurentie (co-directed with M. Denis), which was launched in Karlovy Vary in 2011 and won awards in London and St. Petersburg. In 2012, he presented his third feature, Le torrent, a poetic drama adapted from a short story by Anne Hébert. Launched at the FNC in Montreal, the film was hailed by the critics. In 2015, Simon Lavoie reteams with Mr. Denis for the resounding Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n’ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Best Canadian Film at TIFF 2016, Special Jury Mention in the Generation section at Berlinale).
The following year, critics unanimously hailed La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes (based on the novel by Gaétan Soucy), his 5th feature, launched at TIFF, where it received a Special Jury Mention for Best Canadian Film. In 2019, he shoots the poetic drama Nulle trace, which becomes the opening film of the 27th Slamdance Film Festival, where it also wins the Jury Prize “_Breakouts”. In 2022, the financial drama Norbourg, which he wrote and Maxime Giroux directed, was released on more than 75 screens and was one of the biggest box-office hits of the year in Quebec. In 2023, he directed the independent essay film Se fondre. In 2024, he co-wrote the feature-length fiction films Un homme libre by Frédérick Pelletier and L’autre by Alexandre Franchi, both currently in post-production.