Jury 2022

A life that looks like a novel in three volumes…
First Volume: Birth in Montreal. Publishes news at 17 years old. Becomes a singing star a TV star, a movie star.
Second Volume: Lives in Paris. Publishes a novel: Loup Blanc. Writes 40 hours of fiction series for France 2 and TF1. Then 14 films, three of which pulverize the audience records of France 2. “Fatou the Malian” (directed by Daniel Vigne), FIPA of gold, Seven of gold (named in New-York at the International Emmy Awards), will be seen by 9 million viewers.
Third Volume: Meet Bernard Landry then Prime Minister of Quebec, who brings her back to her hometown and marriage. Years of love, complicity, solidarity …

Dubbed “Mr. Montreal” by CBC Arts, Richard “Bugs” Burnett is an arts and culture journalist and columnist. He is also a pop culture pundit on radio and television. His pioneering column Three Dollar Bill is the only syndicated LGBTQ column in Canadian publishing history, and is now conserved in The ArQuives, the largest independent LGBTQ archive in the world. In 2019, Bugs received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chambre de Commerce LGBT du Québec at their annual Prix Phénicia Gala. Bugs has interviewed everybody from Cher to Justin Trudeau, got the last-ever sit-down interview with the late James Brown, and knows his hometown like a drag queen knows a cosmetics counter. Tourisme Montréal says, “As Michael Musto is to New York City, Richard Burnett is to Montreal.”

Director and composer of the recent feature Brain freeze, Julien Knafo is a multidisciplinary artist who began his career as a composer on Jean Chabot’s medium- length film Sans raison apparente, starring novelist, playwright and essayist Nancy Houston. A graduate of Concordia University’s School of Cinema, Julien Knafo composed original soundtracks for the shorts his fellow directors were making, all the while continuing to develop his own signature style of filmmaking. Julien Knafo composed the music for director Kim Nguyen’s first two feature films Le marais (2003) and Truffe (2006). In 2008, he composed the soundtrack for the Canada Pavilion at the Aichi World Exposition in Japan, under the direction of Pierre-Daniel Rhéault. In 2010, he launched the feature film Lucidité passagère, which he co-directed with three other filmmakers and for which he composed the music. The soundtrack of Lucidité Passagère, starring Mario Saint-Amand, Maxim Roy and Hélène Florent, was nominated for the Best Music Award at the 2011 Jutra Awards.

A woman of many talents, Danièle Lorain is a singer, a multidisciplinary artist and an actress who has been seen in film, television and theater. She is also an author, translator, and regular columnist for the Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québec.

Pierre Pageau is a retired film professor from Cegep Ahuntsic and from the University of Montreal. He has collaborated on various film reviews, contributed to several books, and done historical research for the documentary Mack Sennett, Roi du comique (by Jean Chabot, 2000) and, in 2006, for a Mack and Mabel (Vic Pelletier producer). He hosts a weekly film program on Radio Centre-ville. He has regularly collaborated with the film magazine “Séquences” and, today, with KinoCulture Montreal. He was vice-president of the AQCC. He published, in 2006, with Yves Lever, a Chronology of cinema in Quebec (400 Coups). He then published, in 2009, Les salles de cinéma au Québec, 1896-2008 (GID publisher). He does the programming for the movie theater in Mercier-Est, STATION VU (2014-2022), that was relocated in 2022 in Pointe-aux-Trembles

Beverly Shaffer has earned an international reputation for her insightful and finely crafted documentaries, winning over 40 awards including an Oscar, in a 30 years career at the National Film Board of Canada. Her numerous credits include the Oscar winning I’LL FIND A WAY; its sequel, JUST A WEDDING; TO MY BIRTHMOTHER; TO A SAFER PLACE; and the acclaimed series CHILDREN OF JERUSALEM. Early in her career she worked on the Emmy award winning series NOVA and ZOOM, both productions of the Boston-based PBS station WGBH.