André Melanson is an independent filmmaker from Scoudouc, New Brunswick. A film enthusiast from a young age, he drives his curiosity to discover all genres and cinematographic processes. It was in the 2000s that he clicked to become a director watching the films “The Limey” and “Traffic” by Steven Soderbergh. Charmed by the director’s particular universe, André finds strong inspiration in it through the atmospheres and techniques used such as colorimetry, composition and the use of ellipses.
Visual aesthetics are of great importance for the young emerging filmmaker, he sharpens his gaze with photography through his Acadian escapades which also serve as a location for his next shoots.
Completely self-taught, in 2014 he embarked on the directing and self-production of short films in Super 8. His first project “Here today, gone tomorrow”, presented at the Festival International du Cinéma Francophone en Acadie (FICFA) at the he occasion of the Acadie Underground component wins the 2nd public vote prize. 2 other equally daring self-produced achievements will follow: Hunting rabbits in 2015 (also 2nd prize in the public vote at Acadie Underground of the FICFA) and Broken wings (2016) The latter initially banned from Acadia's programming Underground car deemed shocking and politically incorrect was finally rehabilitated and won the public's choice! These often controversial films with dreamlike, sensual and raw atmospheres have given the emerging filmmaker a reputation for provoking and sulphurous avant-garde.
In 2017, still at FICFA, on the occasion of the Oblique Strategies media component (putting in competition 7 teams of 2 people from visual arts or media arts to make a short film of less than 10 minutes at a micro-budget and from 'a given sentence) André Melanson will collaborate with Chris Leblanc. Together they will realize ”Lost in Useless Territory”. Although this production is treated with humour and derision, a short sex scene will shock the audience and confirm for many that André dares everything, even indecency!
In 2019, after 2 years of research and creation, André Melanson presents a preview to the public of FICFA his new short film: “Daphnee”. This achievement stands out from his previous projects by its maturity where melancholy, poetry and emotion are the basis of the aestheticism of the film. Using slow motion techniques to magnify the beauty of natural settings, the surreal dimension of the film is sublimated thanks to a fragmented temporality.
With this film, the Acadian filmmaker has shown his ability to take a lot of aesthetic risks (the shooting was carried out in a natural environment in places that are very difficult to access: the bed of a torrential river surrounded by immense blocks of rocks below a road), ethical (by breaking the image that stuck to his skin and that the public had of his films), or financial (he is once again self-produced). But the real challenge for him was to make this first digital film on his own and to overcome his intimidation in the face of the new concepts and techniques of filmmaking or editing that he was learning, by integrating them into his project. He is proud to present his new film which looks like him, where fantasy meets reality to tell the trauma that manifests itself when a fisherman meets a mythical creature.