The search for oneself in a deluded wold of ignorance and insecurity

The fast and frenetic pace in “Façade: Adrift in a sea of strangers” will certainly get your adrenaline drifting. Trying to decipher the nature of the story will put your brain on overdrive – in the best of ways possible. Directed by French-Canadian filmmaker Alexandre Richard, “Façade” focuses on the concepts of rebellion and its transformative aftermath.

The idea was to design a piece that would attack the notion of the “false self” that we all create at a very young age. In part, to please our parents. We are forced to live with this defensive “façade” as we search for acceptance in society. It felt to me like one of our biggest problems as a people.

I like movies that scar me

I presented the screenplay to my cinematographer, Jean-Luc Oicle, and together, in order to achieve the stylistic counterpart to the theme, we rewrote most of the narration. Our collaboration allowed us to uplift the first (and very analytical) draft into a more visceral and metaphorical experience. I like movies that scar me, that leave me thinking and I don’t see myself doing films that simply ease a person’s mind on a friday night. That’s one of the reasons why the duality in this short film is so strong: the dichotomies that we adopted in its design.

It ends up nourishing the concept itself since after all, we are telling a story about the false and real self, about good and bad, creation and destruction, love and disconnect.

While the story is grasping and epiphanic, it only raises to a praising experience due to its high valued production. Starting from a stellar image and general design, to the eccentric soundtrack that flows straight to our veins. The entire team went overboard on getting the tiniest details right.

Graham GS and the production team at “Les Orphelins” supported me throughout the film’s entire creation. We built a well-equipped and hardened crew eager to undertake the intense shooting schedule, multiple locations, large cast and extensive shotlist. The project wouldn’t have been possible without their dedication and input. We had great ideas; they had even greater skill to help us execute them.

This film, like most of my works, profoundly changed me. It opened my eyes. When I was young, I learned a lot from movies. It taught me to separate the real from the fake, develop a set of principles to live by but most importantly, to forge my own identity. I’ve always hoped that one day I too could affect people in the same way with my stories.