The Vancouver feature film Follies screened at the 44th Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF). It was also screened at the 50th Anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Here is our conversation with writer, actor and filmmaker Eric Boulianne:
HNMAG: You also worked on the new comedy Mile End Kicks. Have you seen it yet?
Eric Boulianne: No, I haven’t seen it yet because it was a packed house at TIFF. I couldn’t get into the screening. I hope I’ll catch it soon.
HNMAG: Follies was at TIFF as well.
Eric Boulianne: Yes.
HNMAG: That’s great. Congratulations. Where did you grow up?
Eric Boulianne: I grew up in a small region in Quebec that’s called Charlevoix. It’s about an hour from Quebec City.
There’s a famous ski resort there. It’s called Le Massif. Usually, people know Charlevoix because of it.
HNMAG: When did you become interested in film and TV?
Eric Boulianne: Early on, there was a small theater in the town where I grew up.
HNMAG: Right.
Eric Boulianne: I used to go there a lot. I’d also mentored when I was young. I went to a summer camp, and a counselor gave me movies on VHS.
HNMAG: Nice.
Eric Boulianne: We saw all these fucked up movies. It was so much fun. Cinema can be everything. So, yeah, it was pretty early. The first film that really spoke to me was Pulp Fiction.
HNMAG: Was that part of the early VHS experience?
Eric Boulianne: Yeah, that was a bit later.
HNMAG: Another great movie that screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival was Peak Everything. You played a good part in the movie. Frank was a great character. He was a sincere, authentic friend who was needed by the main character.
Eric Boulianne: It’s the kind of character that grounds the main character because he’s going on this weird trip where he’s having a new life and all that. I played a kind of anchor in his past life.
HNMAG: That makes sense. What did you start doing first? Did you start writing or did you start acting first?
Eric Boulianne: I started writing first.
HNMAG: How did you get into acting after that?
Eric Boulianne: When I got out of university, we were a bunch of friends, we were making movies, and I automatically became the writer of the team. I was just having fun being in my room and writing those scripts, and we were shooting stuff there in the summer. We were trying to make one short film each summer. One day, we were doing a web series, and there was a guy who was supposed to be in the web series, but he didn’t show up.
HNMAG: You started acting by default.
Eric Boulianne: I was like, okay, I’m going to play the drummer. I was in this theater group, and it was kind of always something interesting for me. The first time I did it and it was fun. Then a director saw that web series and gave me a role in a feature film. I also love to act. Some friends, directors, started to give me some small parts in their movies, but then the parts got bigger, and I became an actor.
HNMAG: How did Follies happen?
Eric Boulianne: I was a screenwriter for about ten years.
HNMAG: Right.
Eric Boulianne: Before Follies, I wrote nine feature films. So that was really my main thing.
HNMAG: Uh-huh.
Eric Boulianne: Then I made a short film that was called Making Babies.
HNMAG: That makes sense.
Eric Boulianne: I went to Locarno and TIFF with the short.
HNMAG: Nice.
Eric Boulianne: It was in the top ten, I gained some confidence.
HNMAG: Mm-hmm.
Eric Boulianne: Before that, I was sticking to writing because I knew that I was able to do it. I was kind of shy to try to direct. When I made the short film, it gave me this confidence. So it was like, okay, maybe now we can try to do a feature film, but, you know, in the system, you need to wait two to three years for funding.
I wanted to do it now. I used some of my own money, and then we got some cash from the distributor. So we started shooting with $200,000.
HNMAG: That’s pretty good.
Eric Boulianne: We asked the government for funds for post-production, which we got in the end. Everything went pretty, pretty, pretty fast.
HNMAG: Oh?
Eric Boulianne: We wrote the script in a month and a half. We wrote the script in March last year. We started to shoot in November last year. And then I finished the editing in April this year. We went to Locarno in August.
HNMAG: The film festival in Switzerland.
Eric Boulianne: Yeah, in Switzerland.
HNMAG: Follies is a comedy that touches on a taboo subject. Did you have experience with polyamory or with swinging before writing the script?
Eric Boulianne: I didn’t. I have been in a relationship for twenty years. I know what it’s like to be in a long-term monogamous relationship. That’s the starting point. What if a monogamous couple were trying to dip their toes in a non-monogamous world? The approach was very naive because I just wanted it to be a dissertation on the whole thing about polyamory and all that. So it was just so, the approach was naive, but then we started to be curious about it. Then we started to write and read about it. Then we visited a club like Libertine, and in Montreal, Club L.
HNMAG: There were scenes shot at Club L.
Eric Boulianne: Yes, as we met and spoke with more people in the lifestyle, we got to know them, and they were curious about the movie. We really wanted to be respectful about the whole thing, but then having fun because it’s a comedy, but not punching down.
HNMAG: Sure.
Eric Boulianne: Just punching up and then having fun, but really being curious and just open. When we approached Club L, they told us the main thing is that they didn’t care about the money and all that. They just wanted a nice and accurate representation of non-monogamy.
HNMAG: There was one scene where it was mostly men at the club, and your character, François, was very uncomfortable.
Eric Boulianne: I know that in Club L, they don’t allow single men, but I heard that in some clubs where they allow single men, it’s just a sausage fest. There are two or three couples and lots of guys around them. That happens, so we wanted to have that in the movie.
HNMAG: Your character’s wife, Julie, is also naive. You are both not in this world, and you’re learning as …
Eric Boulianne: That was part of the humor for sure. We wanted to be sincere about it. We didn’t want you to come across as if we knew about this world. It was important to succeed by being honest about it. I’m playing my character as I would by being myself, discovering this kind of world.
HNMAG: What’s next, after Follies?
Eric Boulianne: Right now, I’m working on two feature film scripts that I’m writing to direct. It was so much fun directing Follies and getting those chops; I want to do it again. I’m working on another comedy, which is about a suicide watch, but it’s a funny film. The other one is a proletarian baseball movie about the 1994 Expos.
HNMAG: Right, the best team in baseball that got screwed due to the strike, which led to the downfall of America’s pastime. That’s terrific that you make movies that show life in Montreal. The world needs to see who we are as Canadians. Working on Mile End Kicks, that film has a unique and specific Montreal experience.
Eric Boulianne: When the writer, director, Chandler Levack, spoke with me about Mile End Kicks, I was like, Cool, an English perspective about Montreal. It was really a fun idea. She initially wanted to call it Anglophone.
Follies is a very funny, entertaining, and heartwarming movie. It takes on the subject of monogamy, and even in successful marriages with caring and thoughtful partners, you still have struggles to maintain exciting and loving relationships. Eric Boulianne has built a career as a talented writer and performer. Now he has proven that he is also an accomplished director. We are happy for him and know that he will have a long and exciting career. We are excited to watch his future projects, especially the one about Larry Walker, Pedro Martinez, and Felipe Alou. The world needs to be reminded about Major League Baseball’s greatest error in denying the team of destiny.