Incendies director astonished at Oscar nod

MONTREAL – On the phone from Park City, Utah, on Tuesday morning, a sleep-deprived Denis Villeneuve was still having a hard time digesting the news that his latest film, Incendies, had nabbed an Oscar nomination as best foreign-language film.

“I don’t believe it yet,” said the Montreal filmmaker, on a conference call from the Sundance Film Festival with Canadian journalists. “When I think of that, I’m very emotional. I didn’t sleep at all so I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, happy, and I don’t have any distance re: what we’re talking about this morning. I’m frankly astonished.”

Incendies becomes only the fifth Canadian film ever to snare a nomination in this category at the Academy Awards. The last Canadian film to compete for the foreign-language Oscar was Toronto-based director Deepa Mehta’s Hindi-language film Water in 2006. The other three Canadian Oscar foreign-language nominations all come courtesy of Quebec filmmaker Denys Arcand, who was on the Academy Awards short list with Le Déclin de l’empire américain, Jésus de Montréal, and Les Invasions barbares. Les Invasions won the Oscar in 2004, making it the only Canadian film ever to take home the hardware in the foreign-language category.

Villeneuve is at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah where Incendies is screening, and that’s where he learned the good news, over a breakfast of pancakes and strong coffee with his producers Luc Déry and Kim McCraw.

“When they announced that it was Canada, we jumped to the roof,” said Villeneuve. “We were like a bunch of kids, shouting and crying.”

Villeneuve has been on the road for months promoting Incendies in different festivals and he said he has tried hard not to think too much about whether or not the Quebec film would land an Oscar nod. But his stress level went into overdrive at midnight Monday when he and his friends uncorked a bottle of champagne to celebrate … the possibility of an Oscar nomination the following morning. After that, sleep was pretty well out of the question for the writer-director, whose previous films include Polytechnique, Maelstrom and Un 32 août sur terre.

Villeneuve adapted Incendies from the acclaimed 2003 play of the same name by Montreal playwright Wajdi Mouawad and he had to take major liberties with the stage material to transform it into something that would work on the big-screen. The bloody, wrenching drama begins with two siblings, the twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette), being told by the family notary (Rémy Girard) that their late mother (Lubna Azabal) has left letters they are to deliver to a father they thought long dead and a brother they didn’t know existed. They return to an un-named country in the Middle East to try to unravel this mystery.

Yesterday, Villeneuve was quick to give props to Mouawad.

“I know that today I owe almost everything to Wajdi Mouawad, who wrote this fantastic play,” said Villeneuve.

Incendies is all about the horrors of sectarian conflict but in the end it also carries a strong message about the need to heel those wounds and start afresh.

“Everything is linked. We are all victims and everyone is responsible. I think that we have to build bridges with other cultures and cinema is a powerful tool to make those kinds of bridges. Incendies is a teeny, small bridge but still it’s a bridge.”

The other films competing with Incendies in the foreign-language category are In a Better World from Denmark, Dogtooth from Greece, Outside the Law from Algeria, and the much-touted Biutiful from Mexico.

Villeneuve has been in discussions with American producers at Sundance and he said he is not opposed to the notion of making a film in the U.S. “but not under just any conditions,” said Villeneuve.

The first person he called with the good news was his wife “and then I text messaged my kids. I know they are not allowed to use their cellphones in the school. But I had promised them. So maybe they’ll have a hard time with their teachers, but this morning I didn’t care.”

Incendies will reopen on 12 screens in Quebec Friday, including at Quartier Latin, Cinéma du Parc and Beaubien.