Film production grad explores the human mind through stories
“I think if I had followed my talents, I would be a scientist, but I’m passionate about storytelling,” says Marion Duhaime-Morissette.
Science and art intersect for Duhaime-Morissette in her long-held fascination with the human mind. She may not have pursued psychology as a practice, but she does like to probe the mind with her films.
Duhaime-Morissette is graduating this spring with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. She also will add the Alfred Pinsky Medal to her impressive collection of academic awards. The medal is given to the student who earns the highest marks in a Faculty of Fine Arts bachelor’s program.
Confessing she’s “a bit of a nerd,” Duhaime-Morissette’s decision to pursue filmmaking was gradual. She recalls a high-school phase of watching Woody Allen movies and feeling there ought to be more female directors to bring more female voices to the movie-watching world.
That’s what drew her to cinema, and why she particularly liked the courses she had with Micheline Lanctôt, a veteran actor and director who is a member of the part-time faculty within the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema.
The school appealed to Duhaime-Morissette because it fell under the auspices of fine arts and has a creative bent. “I knew it would be more about the exploration … that it would have a bit more freedom,” she says.
Her program covered all the aspects of producing a film — from scriptwriting to cinematography to directing – to give her and other students a taste of every aspect of filmmaking. She took on as many roles as she could, both at school and on other productions, to build her skills and learn about teamwork on a film crew.
During her studies, Duhaime-Morissette wrote and directed three short films, including one about a family reunion in a strip club. Her most recent effort, Les fourmis noires, is about a young girl who tries to reconcile with her parents during her grandfather's funeral.
“It was my most personal piece to date, so I was a bit anxious about how it would be received,” she says. (She needn’t have worried: it was chosen as part of the Best of the Fest at the cinema school’s annual student film festival.)
Duhaime-Morissette plans to continue working at the National Film Board for now, where she had an internship and has worked part-time for the past couple of years. She’s also thinking of pursuing an MFA at some point, and would like to teach.
Being a storyteller, however, she has several project ideas in the hopper. Duhaime-Morissette’s long-term goal is to write and direct a feature film. Given the way she applies herself to her goals, it’s highly probable.
Related links:
• Read about more 2012 Great Grads in the Faculty of Fine Arts
• The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
• The National Film Board of Canada
• Cinema professor Micheline Lanctôt