About Francine Forest – Executive Producer

Francine Forest has joined Vivavision in 2007 as Vice-president Pro-duction. She has been working in the television and film industry for the past thirty years.

In 2004, Francine Forest produced Mathieu Roy’s first feature length documentary, François Girard’s three-act journey. Over the years, she has mainly been teamed up with director Pierre Houle, which has turned out to be a highly productive collaboration. They both shook up television viewers with Tag (part 1 & 2) and Bunker, the Circus, shocking series that left no one indifferent when it first aired in Québec.

The same duo is also responsible for Pellan, la femme désirée wich won a Gémeau for best documentary in 2005 and Riopelle, sans titre, 1999, collage, a documentary that won the Telefilm Canada award for Best Canadian French-Language Production at the 1999 Banff Television Festival; First Prize at the Festival international du film d’art et pédagogique in France; and awards for Best Director and Best Music at Toronto’s prestigious Hot Docs Festival.

Their credits also include the television series Omertà 1 and Omertà 2, which won 11 and 9 Gémeau prizes, respectively. As a freelance producer for SDA Productions, Forest also produced the series Scoop IV, which garnered three Gémeau and whose first seven episodes were directed by Pierre Houle.

After working in several areas of the film industry, Forest has focused her energy on her career as a producer since the early 1980s. Over the years, she has worked with the likes of Francis Mankiewicz, Jean-Claude Lord, and Jean-Guy Noël. In 1984, she was executive producer for Yves Simoneau’s Pouvoir intime, and produced films such as Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Piwi and Alain Chartrand’s L’Étau-Bus. She also served as production manager for many commercials made by Les Productions du Verseau.

From 1985 to 1987, Forest held various positions at Telefilm Canada, including Manager of Operations and Business Relations. In 1987 she joined the production house Cléo 24, where she served as President from 1990 to 1994. There, she produced a number of films, including Bernard Favre’s Vents de Galerne as a coproduction with France; François Girard’s Cargo; and Gabriel Pelletier’s L’Automne sauvage (both coproductions with Velvet Camera). Her credits also include François Labonté’s made-for-TV movie Manuel, le fils emprunté, a coproduction with Les Productions EGM, and Labonté’s Les marchands du silence, a coproduction with Raspail et Ass., France.