It might be time for Quebec filmmaker Philippe Falardeau to buy a tuxedo.
When the 44-year-old director from Hull, Que. first learned that his moving school drama, "Monsieur Lazhar," had been chosen as Canada's entry for the Oscar's Best Foreign Film race in 2012, he was stunned. He even joked about borrowing a tuxedo from fellow Quebec filmmaker and "Incendies" director Denis Villeneuve should "Monsieur Lazhar" make Oscar's final cut, as "Incendies" did at the 83rd Academy Awards.
Now with Oscar night nearing and more accolades streaming in for "Monsieur Lazhar" since the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival -- most recently Best Canadian Film kudos from the Toronto Film Critics Association -- Falardeau says it's time to spring for his own tux with the $15,000 prize.
"It's not my style. But I think I can afford the tuxedo now," the down-to-earth Falardeau said during a recent visit to Toronto.
"In the end, I don't know if I'll need it," Falardeau said, with a grin.
"I'm waiting, just like everyone else, to hear the Oscar nominations. But I do feel like this has all been a wonderful accident. I wasn't looking for this film. It found me. To see it have a chance for an Oscar or see a guy like David Cronenberg applauding for me at the Toronto Critics Awards after he lost to me is surreal."
The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 24. The awards will be held Feb. 26 and air live from Los Angeles on CTV.
In Sept. of 2011, Telefilm Canada selected the French-language movie from among 34 eligible films to represent Canada at the Oscars.
School dramas, of course, are certainly nothing new to the awards show circuit.
The French school drama "The Class," for example, from director Laurent Cantet won the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
In fact, Falardeau was so awed by Cantet's work that he almost dropped "Monsieur Lazhar" after seeing "The Class."
"I was writing the script for ‘Monsieur Lazhar' at the time and I thought what am I doing here? ‘The Class' was so good. How could I do better?" said Falardeau.
"Monsieur Lazhar," however, was not any ordinary school-room drama.
Based on Evelyne de la Chenelière's play, "Monsieur Lazhar" tells a powerful story about an Algerian political refugee (Mohamed Said Fellag) who takes a job teaching a Grade 6 classroom in a Montreal school.
Unlike most Grade 6 students, these kids had more on their minds than video games and play time.
Their previous teacher had committed suicide by hanging herself. Traumatized by the event, the children learned to cope with the tragedy thanks to the mysterious Monsieur Lazhar.
Falardeau, who studied political science at the University of Ottawa, earned earlier acclaim for his biting social commentary in art-house films such as "The Left-hand Side of the Fridge" and "Congorama."
In "Monsieur Lazhar," Falardeau turned his attentions to today's immigrant experience. But playwright de la Chenelière had her reservations about translating this theme to Falardeau's film.
"When I first asked Evelyne about adapting her play she was less than enthusiastic," said Falardeau.
"She didn't want this to be a Robin Williams-like family film and she was right," he said.
"I liked Lazhar's humanity and his dignity and it had to stay. To sacrifice that would have sacrificed the movie and turned it into a cliché," said Falardeau.
To play Lazhar, Falardeau auditioned 20 actors in Paris's large North-African community. He was ultimately struck by one man, the Algerian stand-up comic known simply by his last name, Fellag.
Little known to the rest of the world, Fellag is idolized by North Africans in France and adored in Quebec for his tough political comedy.
The comic fled Algeria in the 1990s, when artists in that country were being persecuted by the regime in power.
Falardeau was instantly impressed by Fellag's dignity and fragility as he moved and talked during their first meeting. However, when Falardeau asked Fellag for details about his past the comic did not want to discuss it -- much like Monsieur Lazhar.
"Sometimes we meet immigrants in our day-to-day life and we have no idea what they went through," said Falardeau.
"A guy like Lazhar, for example, won't talk about the terrible losses in his past because he's grieving so much," he said.
"If ‘Monsieur Lazhar' does any good at all as a movie, I hope that it will make us realize that when ‘outsiders,' as we often call immigrants, don't reveal everything about their lives to us, it's often because they are hurting."
Falardeau also harbours one other wish for "Monsieur Lazhar."
Regardless of how the Oscar nominations play out, the man Variety listed as one of the 10 directors to watch in 2012 believes the presence of films like "Monsieur Lazhar" in this race will remind moviemakers to stay true to their passion.
"When you look at the big pool of films out there and the way the industry is today, ‘Monsieur Lazhar' says one thing loud and clear: you have to do the films you believe you have inside of you, not the films you think people want to see," said Falardeau.
"Personal movies like these will always have more chances of making it big than commercial films."
