RIDM 2017: A Trailer That Leaves the Editing Screen
In 2017, I directed a trailer for the Montréal International Documentary Festival. That year, the festival celebrated its twentieth edition from November 9 to 19. For me, the project was part of a multi-year collaboration with RIDM that accompanied the beginning of my independent filmmaking career.
A festival trailer needs to create desire, announce an encounter and carry an identity in very little time. I love that concentration of directing work: finding a form that can stand on its own while opening toward something larger, here an encounter with documentary cinema.
The project brought together several perspectives and disciplines. Simon Bellefleur created the sound design and mix. Florian Burtscher contributed a shot to the trailer. Conversations with the RIDM team and postproduction at Post-Moderne supported the making of the video. These collaborations remind us how much the precision of a short format relies on collective work.
By early November, the trailer had begun circulating. It appeared on the festival’s platforms, but also in the Montréal metro, in cinemas before films and on television. Moving from a project we’re working on to images meeting audiences in those spaces gives another dimension to their creation.
The RIDM trailers are among my first projects broadcast on television. They shaped how I see the profession: an idea created with a small team can find a place in the city’s daily life and reach very different audiences.
What stays with me is the pleasure of creating for an event devoted to distinctive perspectives. Helping make people want to discover films, working on the relationship between image and sound, then seeing that work leave the editing screen: these stages fed my confidence and desire to continue directing.
Explore the festival archives:https://ridm.ca/fr/archives
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