Ana\u00efs Barbeau-Lavalette is a screenwriter, director, and novelist. Along with eco-sociologist Laure Waridel, she is also the co-founder of M\u00e8res au front, a movement that brings together mothers and grandmothers aimed at protecting the environment and the future of their children. Committed and inspiring, she shares with us the results of her reflection on her creative process and the place of transformative encounters.<\/p>\n
Hello, Ana\u00efs. What can you tell us about the role that stories play in your life?<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, as a reader, fiction and essays have the effect of expanding me, making me broader. They reveal doors I have inside me, but which I wasn\u2019t aware of until then. Some readings kick down a door or open other doors delicately, depending on the reading and the type of writer. There are pieces of me that had been dormant until then which are revealed by listening to certain voices. I love that. That also happens to me when I meet unique people, in the sense that encountering a work can easily be compared to meeting someone unique. These meetings can be remarkable, influencing the trajectory of my life, if I open myself up to them and allow myself to be porous.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an author, obviously, my work is born from a<\/p>\n
desire to tell a story. And whatever story I tell, I always choose my subjects carefully, because I know they\u2019ll live inside me in a deep and lasting way. I don\u2019t write a book a week\u2014nor a screenplay, for that matter\u2014so I think about my subjects knowing that we\u2019ll live together for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201c It\u2019s always special to talk about the state of creation, because it\u2019s so fragile and intimate. This is undoubtedly a very rare disposition, a quality of presence that is\u2014again\u2014very rare, very vulnerable. It requires an openness between yourself and your thoughts, defenseless, which doesn\u2019t often happen in the ordinary world. On a daily basis, we\u2019re rarely so directly connected to our essence. This is what makes writing so precious and special: the state of writing\u2014especially literary\u2014which is unlike almost anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
What, for you, are the essential elements for achieving this state of writing?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something that can be forced. However, there are naturally favourable conditions. To write a novel\u2026 I make the distinction, because there\u2019s something more mathe- matical and much less intimate about writing a screenplay. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s easier to write, but let\u2019s just say I don\u2019t need the same introspection.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, to write a novel, normally, I need to isolate myself. I live life surrounded by people, I have three kids, my boyfriend is self-employed, and we don\u2019t have a fixed schedule, so it\u2019s necessary to find little pockets of time. I like to create writing residencies where I extract myself from my usual life, often in the country. I recently got into the habit of going to write near the river, because the St. Lawrence River inspires me, even if that\u2019s not necessarily what I\u2019m writing about. Its presence nourishes me a lot, in many ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I isolate myself, I don\u2019t absolutely need to be alone; I can be surrounded by other people who have the same desire to create. What matters is silence, really just being alone with your thoughts. There can be ten people in the same house; everyone gets up early and starts creating while preserving their little bubble, then we meet up afterward to discuss.<\/p>\n
\u201cNature is also essential to me, probably because I have a super lively urban life with lots of friends and lots of life around me. I think it\u2019s a story of contrasts.\u201d<\/p>\n
In your novels, you often put forward opposing subjects: death that is part of life, the need to stay or go, the extraordinary in the ordinary. Do you do this deliberately?<\/p>\n
\u201cI like thinking about humanity at its extremes. I get the impression that often (and I\u2019m including myself in this), we take a shortcut and paint ourselves with a single colour, when I think we\u2019re much more complex than that. Our extremes are revealed in relation to what we encounter, so we have to allow ourselves to encounter subjects, languages, and works that shake us up and take us to one extreme or the other. It would be really boring to boil ourselves down to either sweetness or wildness. What\u2019s magnificent about human beings is that we\u2019re inhabited by all these extremes, and often, when we write, we\u2019re pushed to think about all that. If I\u2019m writing Femme for\u00eat or Femme fleuve, I quickly realize that beauty isn\u2019t just soft and soothing; it\u2019s also tragic and violent. What I find extraordinary in early childhood is that it\u2019s not just comforting, but brutal; this little emerging life brings me right back to death. All this makes me take a step back from the human condition, and I find it fascinating to look at it through all these spectrums.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freedom is another subject that dominates your stories. Would you say that among the jobs you do, one makes you feel freer than the others?<\/p>\n
\u201cWriting is the job where I feel freest. It\u2019s peculiar, but I almost have an obligation for freedom in writing. That\u2019s really been part of the fun since the beginning, even if I wrote things that could be difficult, such as in La femme qui fuit. [Note: This novel tells the story of Suzanne Meloche, her grandmother, who abandoned her children when they were very young.] I always try to have real pleasure when writing and real freedom to immerse my hands, yes, in reality, if reality inspires me, but to nourish myself totally and freely from my imagination and what life inspires me with. When you\u2019re writing a book, it\u2019s both the greatest risk, because there\u2019s nothing to cover you and it\u2019s just you and your words, but it\u2019s also the greatest freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
You started writing novels later on in your career. How did that happen?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been writing since I was very little. I\u2019ve always loved writing, but really just for fun. My main job had always been, until very recently, a filmmaker. Lately, I say that I have two jobs, but I\u2019ve only recently taken the second one up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a huge gift that people read me, that people are grateful for and pick up my words, that they understand me and follow me wherever I feel like taking them. There\u2019s something overwhelming about that, because I need to write, so I would write even if people didn\u2019t read me. But knowing that in addition, these words might resonate and register with readers, that they move certain things in them\u2026 The greatest and most moving testimonials I\u2019ve received have been after books more than after films, although I also love my job as a filmmaker. In short, I feel like I\u2019m still emerging as an author, while I\u2019m in a more mature chapter\u2014I would say\u2014in my filmmaking career.\u201d<\/p>\n
How do you see the future?<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to do both, which is pretty magnificent. It wasn\u2019t calculated, but the two feed off each other. After going through the huge storm of a film, which is a a big adventure, galvanizing, and charged, what helps me find myself again and make what I\u2019ve achieved stick (because I think we\u2019re transformed from one creative adventure to the next) is writing. Writing allows me that introspection, to meet myself again each time. It\u2019s super healthy, and I really love that, so I think I\u2019ll never stop either one. It\u2019s an intimate, personal, and even creative balancing act. The walls I encounter in films later serve as lessons for me in writing, and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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