Claude Fournier (filmmaker)

Claude Fournier was a Canadian film director, screenwriter, editor and cinematographer. He is one of the forerunners of the Cinema of Quebec. He was the twin brother of Guy Fournier.

Career

Claude Fournier began his career in journalism then moved to the Radio-Canada as a news cameraman. He joined the National Film Board of Canada in 1957 as a writer and director, and he worked on early cinéma-vérité films such as À Saint-Henri le cinq septembre and La lutte. He left the Board to work in the United States with famed documentary filmmakers Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker, then returned to Montreal in 1963 to set up his own production company, Rose Films.
In 1970, he directed Two Women in Gold , one of the most successful Quebec films of its time. In the private sector, Fournier produced over 100 short films, co-wrote the Sophia Loren film A Special Day, a Canada-Italy co-production that was nominated for an Oscar, and directed The Tin Flute with Marilyn Lightstone and The Book of Eve with Claire Bloom. The Tin Flute was entered into the 13th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1988 TV series The Mills of Power won him a Gémeaux Award for best direction of a television drama and a Genie Award for Best Screenplay.
Donald Sutherland described him as "one of the truly wretched directors of the world."
Also a published poet, novelist and essayist, Claude Fournier is one of the most durable and respected Quebec filmmakers of his generation.

Claude Fournier died at the Montreal University Hospital Centre on 16 March 2023, at the age of 91. He had been hospitalised after suffering a heart attack during a trip to Martinique.