‘We know someone’s going to buy it,’ film director Noah Trentadue says with confidence
Noah Trentadue sounded sort of hyped while being interviewed recently about one of his first big film projects. The promising young director had good reason.
It was just a few days before he began location shooting on a full-length feature film dealing with a topic with which Noah is intimately familiar – the city of Laval – which, perhaps not surprisingly, is where he was raised.
Made in Laval
Laval, le film, as Trentadue and producer Alberto Georgian Mihut have titled their independent project, is being billed as the first full-length feature based on fiction to be entirely shot in Laval.
The two are developing the project in conjunction with Média Communautaire Lavallois, which is based in an office building on Saint-Martin Blvd. East in Laval-des-Rapides where a number of co-working entrepreneurs focus on media and communications.
According to a release issued by the production team, work on the film is being done mainly by young volunteers. It was inspired by the notion that a significant number of Laval residents are fed up that their city doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
Film within a film
A “mockumentary” (see the 1984 satirical film ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ for an idea of where the concept first gained traction), Laval, le film contains a “film within a film,” according to its producers, revealing some of their storyline, without giving too much of their script away.
The cast includes some well- and lesser-known Québécois film and TV actors (Diane Marie Racicot, Amilia Ziane, among others). It’s also intergenerational, in that the players range in age from young to much older.
“We wanted to stand out and leave our mark with this first film, making our Laval the focus of attention along with the community,” the film’s producer said in a promotional statement.
Looking beyond Laval
“This isn’t only a niche film about Laval, it’s also an example of community involvement,” he added. “We have no doubt that other cities will be saying, after hearing the news, ‘Hey, what about our film?’”
Noah, who is a film student at Concordia University, said in an interview with The Laval News that, ideally, they would like to see their finished product being as much as 90 minutes in length, although they’d be willing to edit it down to an hour should they sell it to a television network such as Télé-Québec.
“It’s not official yet with Télé-Québec,” he noted. “But obviously with certain local organizations like Culture Laval that have connections there, it’s a very real possibility. It’s just a question of getting execution rights.”
A serious business
In addition to providing audiences with entertainment, filmmaking is also a very serious business, with revenues and profits being front and centre. However, a significant shift in the process in more recent years has been the decline of theatres for in-person film screening (the recent insolvency of Cinémas Guzzo being just one example).
“Between you and me, for distributing the product, we’re trying to get the most eyes we can,” Noah acknowledged, while saying they’re doing their best to navigate the changing distribution landscape. “You have to take into account that in this day and age, streaming services are really where it’s at and as big as it gets. Which is why Télé-Québec is really one of the best places you’d want to have access to in Quebec production.
‘Someone’s going to buy it’
“Radio-Canada, TVA, those are all great channels for television where we can get our product down to an hour and get it into a nice television spot,” he continued. “But it’s really about the first buyer, if you know what I mean. We’re still shopping. And we know someone’s going to buy it.”
Digital shooting, which got underway a few weeks back, was taking place literally all over Laval, according to Noah, including at the Centropolis mall on the edge of downtown, Espace Montmorency, Place Bell, the Centre de la Nature and other places regarded as icons of Laval.
