ABOUT US

La Ruelle

In 2002, in Montreal, Eric Ruel and Guylaine Maroist founded La Ruelle Films (formerly Les Productions de la Ruelle).

They are both passionately devoted to vital causes such as the nuclear threat (Time Bombs and Gentilly or Not to Be) and the resurgence of sexism on social media (Backlash: Misogyny in the Digital Age). They also offer a fresh take on political issues (Disunited States of Canada and God Save Justin Trudeau).

Backed by a top-notch team, Eric Ruel and Guylaine Maroist have forged a unique brand of filmmaking that is reinventing the art of storytelling. They are at the avant-garde of documentary making, creating deep and engaging experiences across multiple platforms.

La Ruelle films au Gala des Prix Gémeaux
Guylaine Maroist, Michel Barbeau et Eric Ruel au Gala des Prix Gémeaux
Guylaine Maroist reçoit les nominations des prix Gémeaux 2018
Eric Ruel et Guylaine Maroist - La Ruelle Films
Guylaine Maroist et Eric Ruel reçoivent le Grand prix du Jury au New York Film Festival

Winners of the Governor General’s History Award for Popular History in 2011, the team also received the Gémeaux (Gemini) Award for Best Documentary for Disunited States of Canada and the Gémeaux (Gemini) Award for Best Research and Best Editing for Gentilly or Not to Be . The revelations in the latter contributed to permanently closing the only nuclear power plant in Quebec. 

With Time Bombs, la Ruelle Films received the 2008 Canadian Gold Ribbon Award for Best Television Documentary, as well as the Grand Jury Award at the New York International Film Festival. The team was nominated for the prestigious Japan Prize in 2010 and also received the Boomerang Grand Prize for the website of J’ai la Mémoire qui Tourne

The feature-length documentary God Save Justin Trudeau was nominated for four Gémeaux (Gemini) Awards in 2015 for Best Documentary, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Photography. The film also won the VIFF d’Or at Vevey, in Switzerland, premiered at the Vision du Réel Festival in 2015 as the opening film, and was in competition for the Sesterce d’Argent. 

The documentary thriller Expo 67 Mission Impossible premiered on April 25, 2017 and was immediately acclaimed by critics. A success both in theatres and on television in Canada, it has been seen by over 1.4 million Canadians. Guylaine Maroist and Eric Ruel also won two Gemeaux (Gemini) Awards for Best Documentary and Best Script for this feature-length documentary.

Jukebox was released in Quebec theatres in 2020 and garnered huge success, ranking in 9th position on the list of the highest-grossing films at the Quebec box-office that year (fiction and documentaries combined). The feature-length documentary was also nominated for the People’s Choice Award at the Gala des Prix Iris in 2021.

Backlash : Misogyny in the Digital Age, the latest film produced by La Ruelle, was released in Canada the fall of 2022. Directed by Léa Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist, this feature-length documentary follows four women and one man whose lives have been turned upside down by cyberviolence. After its first week in theatres, Backlash lead the box-office of Quebec films, all genres included. It has officially become the #1 documentary at the box office of 2022 in Quebec, and is also breaking records by placing in the top 10 of all time at the Quebec documentary box office.

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OUR TEAM
President, Producer, Scriptwriter and Director

Guylaine Maroist

Guylaine Maroist started working as a freelance journalist for Le Devoir in the early ’90s, after studying in Law, Cinema and Musicology at Université de Montréal. She made her debut in the music industry during this same time playing the guitar for Les Jaguars. She started putting together some hundred compilation records from the Quebec catalogue in 1996, for Les Disques Mérite and BMG, which is how she came to meet almost all the known and lesser-known artists of the ’50s, 60s, and 70s. In 1998, she pitched a biographical series to Musimax, which became the TV channel’s flagship program, Musicographie, featuring Quebec artists. She went on to work on more than 70 TV documentaries for Musimax between 1999 and 2007.

She started her own company in 2002, producing original documentaries alongside filmmaker and producer Eric Ruel. The duo made their mark right away with Chanter plus fort que la mer/Singing to drown out the Sea (Zone libre, SRC and Bravo), which was nominated for three Gemini awards. In 2007, they released Time Bombs (Canal D, Global), a film about the Canadian soldiers used as guinea pigs for nuclear testing in Nevada in the ’50s. Thanks to this film, the Canadian government finally agreed to provide compensation for the affected veterans after their 30-year struggle. The shock documentary won the prestigious Gold Ribbon Award from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the New York International Independent Film Festival. The team presented their next project, J’ai la mémoire qui tourne, on Historia in fall 2010. Made from home videos, the series quickly became a favourite among Quebec audiences and Guylaine and Eric ended up winning Canada’s highest distinction in the field of History, the Pierre Berton Award. President of La Ruelle since 2002, Guylaine has transformed the documentary film company into an incubator for creating content for all platforms, including television, cinema and digital platforms, but also for educational purposes. Led by Maroist, the team has also worked on museum exhibitions, urban projections, interactive experiences and books since 2011. In 2015, Guylaine Maroist became the first filmmaker in history to serve Pugwash, a non-governmental organization which has been influencing the United Nations and heads of state since 1957 on matters of peace and nuclear disarmament. More info available on G.M.’s Wikipedia page.

Depuis 2002 – Présidente de La Ruelle
Depuis 2013 – Présidente des Artistes pour la Paix
Depuis 2015 – Membre de Pugwash

2018 – 2 Prix Gémeaux (Meilleur documentaire et Meilleur scénario) et 3 autres nominations au Gala des Prix Gémeaux pour «Expo 67 mission impossible» (Meilleure réalisation, Meilleure recherche et Meilleur montage).

2015 – Gagnante du VIFFF D’Or Grand Prix du jury pour le documentaire «God Save Justin Trudeau» au Vevey International Film Festival en Suisse.

2015 – 4 nominations au Gala des Prix Gémeaux pour «God Save Justin Trudeau». Meilleur documentaire, Meilleure réalisation, Meilleur direction de la photographie et Meilleur montage.

2015 – Compétition officielle pour le Sesterce d’Argent pour «God Save Justin Trudeau» au Festival Visions du Réel en Suisse. Le film est présenté en ouverture du prestigieux festival.

2013 – Gagnante du Meilleur documentaire société au Gala des Prix Gémeaux pour «Les États-Désunis du Canada».

2013 – Gagnante de la  Meilleure recherche documentaire au Gala des Prix Gémeaux pour «Gentilly or Not To Be». Le film a aussi remporté les honneurs du Meilleur montage.

2013 – Nomination pour la Meilleur recherche pour «Les États-Désunis du Canada».

2011 – Gagnante du Prix du Gouverneur général en histoire. Le Prix Pierre-Berton pour les médias populaires.

2011 – Nomination Numix dans la catégorie production de convergence information pour le site web «J’ai la mémoire qui tourne».

2011 – Nomination à Banff dans la catégorie numérique pour le site web «J’ai la mémoire qui tourne».

2010 – Finaliste aux Japan Prize International Educational Program Contest pour la zone éducative du site web «J’ai la mémoire qui tourne».

2010 – Nomination Numix dans la catégorie production de convergence information pour le site web «J’ai la mémoire qui tourne».

2009 – Gagnante du Grand Prix Boomerang pour le meilleur site web média pour «J’ai la mémoire qui tourne».

2009 – 5 nominations pour la série documentaire «J’ai la mémoire qui tourne». Meilleure série documentaire, Meilleur scénario, Meilleur site web, Meilleur montage, Meilleur son.

2008 – Gagnante du Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary pour «Time Bombs» au New-York Internaitonal Film Festival.

2008 – Gagnante du Gold Ribbon Award (Ruban D’OR) for Best Documentary on Canadian Television pour «Time Bombs». Remis par CAB/ACR Canadian Association of Broadcasters.

2008 – Nomination pour la Meilleure recherche pour «Bombes à retardement / Time Bombs» au Gala des Prix Gémeaux. Le documentaire a aussi été nommé pour Meilleur montage.

2007 – Nomination pour la Meilleure biographie pour «Musicographie René Angélil» au Gala des Prix Gémeaux.

2004 – Nomination pour le Meilleur documentaire culturel «Chanter plus fort que la mer» au Gala des Prix Gémeaux. Le film a aussi été nommé pour Meilleur montage et Meilleur son.

2000 – Nomination pour la Meilleure recherche pour «Musicographie Nanette Workman» au Gala des Prix Gémeaux.

2000 – Nomination pour la Meilleure compilation pour «Serge Deyglun en vedette» au Gala de l’ADISQ.

2000 – Nomination pour la Meilleure compilation pour «Renée Martel» au Gala de l’ADISQ.

1999 – Nomination pour la Meilleure compilation pour «Le temps est bon» au Gala de l’ADISQ.

Éric Ruel, Vice-président des Productions de la ruelle

Vice-President, Producer, Filmmaker

Eric Ruel

Eric Ruel initially started making his name as a film editor working for the National Film Board and the Société Radio-Canada (CBC). After founding La Ruelle (formerly Les Productions de la ruelle) Eric produced, co-directed and edited Singing to Drown out the Sea (Chanter plus fort que la mer) (Zone libre ­ SRC, Bravo). The documentary received praise from critics in Quebec and France and was nominated for three Gemini awards.

He then produced, directed and edited the documentary Time Bombs (Bombes à retardement), winner of the prestigious Gold Ribbon Award for the best documentary of the year from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. The film also won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2008 New York Film Festival and was nominated for three Gemini awards including Best Documentary and Best Editing.

In fall 2009, Eric produced and directed the series J’ai la mémoire qui tourne which became very popular on TV channel Historia. J’ai la mémoire qui tourne is not just a televised documentary series, but also a safeguarding project for Quebec families’ home videos. For this project, Eric Ruel and Guylaine Maroist won the 2011 Governor General’s History Award, also known as The Pierre-Berton Award, the highest honour in the field of history in Canada. In 2012, Ruel produced, co-directed and edited two documentaries which drew a lot of attention from the media and the public and sparked social debates. Gentilly or Not to Be contributed to the permanent closing of the only nuclear plant in Quebec as it revealed the serious security and public health threats caused by the Gentilly-2 nuclear energy station. The documentary won Gemini awards for Best Research and Best Editing and was broadcast on Télé-Québec and TV5 Monde. Later in 2012, he produced, directed the photography and edited Disunited States of Canada, a film on Canadian separatists outside of Quebec. This bold documentary was a big hit in Quebec theatres and presented on Canal D and The Documentary Channel. It won the Gemini Award for Best Documentary in 2013. In November 2014, Eric co-directed, produced, edited and directed the photography for God Save Justin Trudeau, a feature-length on show time politics featuring Justin Trudeau and Patrick Brazeau as they train for the boxing match that will change their lives. The film was presented at the Rencontres internationales du documentaire (RIDM), the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (2015) and at the Salt Spring Film Festival (2015). God Save Justin Trudeau also kicked off the Vision du Réel film festival in Switzerland in 2015 as part of the “Sesterce d’argent” competition. It won the VIFFF D’OR at the Vevey International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2015 and was presented on Canal D, CTV and RTS. Finally, it was nominated for four Gemini awards: Best Documentary, Best Direction, Best Editing and Best Photography Direction. In 2014, Eric Ruel was nominated for the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence for Ontario College Graduates. Mon quartier au Cinéma was projected at the Quartier des Spectacles in Montreal in fall 2015. In 2016, he began producing Jukebox, a feature-length on the Quebec music industry. In 2017, he produced and co-directed the documentary thriller Expo 67 Mission Impossible. It was presented for 8 weeks in commercial theatres and 5 weeks in Anglophone Canada. 500 showings later, the film is still being presented in the four corners of Quebec and in Quebec schools. In 2020, Eric is releasing his first participative documentary, the comedy Jukebox. Later this year, he will also release Only Words (working title), a film by Léa Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist. Eric is currently working on two new films and will travel the world in the coming months to seek funding for his productions. He will be present at DokFest Munchen as well as Eaves.

2018 – Gemini Award winner for Best Documentary and Best Screenplay for Expo 67 Mission Impossible which was nominated in three other categories (Best Direction, Best Research and Best Editing)

2015 – VIFFF D’Or winner—Grand Jury Prize at the Vevey International Film Festival in Switzerland for God Save Justin Trudeau

2015 – 4 Gemini Award nominations for God Save Justin Trudeau: Best Documentary, Best Direction, Best Photography Direction, Best Editing

2015 – Presented for the pre-opening of the Visions du Réel festival in Switzerland, God Save Justin Trudeau took part in the festival’s official “Sesterce d’Argent” competition

2014 – Nominated for the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence for Ontario College Graduates

2013 – Gemini Award winner for Best Documentary on Society for Disunited-States of Canada

2013 – Gemini Award winner for Best Documentary Research and Best Editing for Gentilly or Not to Be.

2013 – Gemini Award nominee for Best Research for Disunited-States of Canada

2011 –Governor General History Award winner, also called The Pierre-Berton Award, for Popular Media for J’ai la mémoire qui tourne

2011 – Numix nominee for Best Convergent Production for the website J’ai la mémoire qui tourne

2011 –Banff World Media Festival nominee in the Digital Media category for website J’ai la mémoire qui tourne

2010 – Japan Prize International Educational Program Contest finalist for the educational component of website J’ai la mémoire qui tourne

2010 – Numix nominee for Best Convergent Production for the website J’ai la mémoire qui tourne

2009 – Boomerang grand prize winner for Best Media Website for J’ai la mémoire qui tourne

2009 – Gemini Award nominee for Best Documentary Series, Best Screenplay, Best Website, Best Editing and Best Sound for J’ai la mémoire qui tourne

2008 – Grand Jury Prize winner for Best Documentary at the New York Film Festival for Time Bombs

2008 – Gold Ribbon award for Best Documentary from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters for Time Bombs

2008 – Gemini Award nominee for Best Research and Best Editing for Time Bombs

2004 – Gemini Award nominee for Best Cultural Documentary, Best Editing and Best Sound for Singing to Drown Out the Sea

2000 – Winner of the Amtec Media Festival Award of Excellence for the documentary series Transit, produced by the National Film Board

Scriptwriter and Director

Léa Clermont-Dion

Léa is a PhD student in Political Science at Laval University where she is writing her thesis on online sexism and the Web as an extended space for gender inequality. In 2016, she won the Vanier Scholarship, one of the most prestigious doctoral scholarships in Canada. She has given more than two hundred conferences in recent years on the status of women, most notably to the Council of Europe.

She has written and directed over a dozen documentary shorts for Radio-Canada in Austria, France, England, Hungary and Germany. Léa also directed Sandra, a short film on prostitution featuring Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse. She created and wrote a documentary on the tyranny of thinness called Beauté Fatale which aired on Télé-Québec. She wrote the script for episodes of Télé-Québec’s series Banc Public. Léa also wrote the Quebec best-seller La revanche des moches, published by VLB, on body image worship.

Léa served a few years on the Council on the Status of Women, the Secrétariat à la condition feminine and the Association Munyu des Femmes de la Comoé (AFC/Munyu), a women’s organization in partnership with Oxfam-Québec in Burkina Faso. She was a co-facilitator for the Québec Charter for a Healthy and Diverse Body Image adopted by the Quebec government in 2009, and for the website Les Féministes. She contributed in removing two reality TV shows on child beauty pageants on Musimax with the help of physician Dr. Alain Vadeboncoeur and economist Ianik Marcil, and thanks to a petition which garnered more than 50,000 signatures. Her involvement earned her the first Forces AVENIR award in 2011, the Canada Millennium Scholarship, the Hommage bénévolat-Québec award, the Personnality of the Week from La Presse in November 2011 and the Young Woman of Distinction award from the Women’s Y Foundation.

2016 – Vanier Scholarship

 

2011 – Forces Avenir award

 

2011 – Hommage Bénévolat Québec award

 

2011 – La Presse’s Personnality of the Week (November)

 

2011 – Young Woman of Distinction award from the Women’s Y Foundation

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR

JÉRÉMY POULIN

Upon graduating from UQAM with a bachelor’s degree in media creation – television, Jérémy Poulin gained experience on a wide array of sets: fiction, variety, studio and documentary. An administration technician prior to his university studies, he relies on his knowledge in management to put his versatility and creativity to good use in La Ruelle’s projects.

Genevieve Pigeon-Project Manager/Coordinator
Project Manager/Coordinator

Geneviève Pigeon

Geneviève Pigeon’s experience in the world of film and communications is highly diversified. Besides having completed a bachelor’s degree and master’s seminars in film studies, she possesses solid graduate-level training in post-secondary education. She has worked in cultural mediation through documentaries with young audiences and in the prison environment, and has also taught film at the college-level and coordinated various audience development initiatives. Since the summer of 2021, she has joined La Ruelle Films in the #Stoplescyberviolences campaign.

ART DIRECTOR AND GRAPHIC DESIGNER

AELYS LAFOREST-JEAN

An accomplished multidisciplinary artist, Aelys Laforest-Jean began her studies at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec as a child. She spent years developing and perfecting her mastery of the violin and musical composition. After winning the radio competition “Le Petit Mozart”, she changed her field to pursue another of her passions: graphic design. At the age of 18, she began working with La Ruelle on the film Expo 67: Mission Impossible. Creator of the flamboyant visual universe of Jukebox, she became the art director for the dark opus Backlash: Misogyny in the Digital Age.

Maud St-Onge
MULTIMEDIA

Maud St-Onge

Maud St-Onge has worked nearly 20 years in multimedia advertising, starting with Quebec advertising agencies before opening her own business more than a decade ago. Brimming with creativity and with full mastery of the available technologies, she offers bold avenues for achieving the objectives of her projects. She designs and programs websites, interactive animations and layouts for printed advertising materials. Maud has been collaborating with La Ruelle since 2003.

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