Anne Poirier, trailblazing Quebec filmmaker, dies at 93

A Trailblazing Career at the National Film Board

Born in Saint-Hyacinthe on June 6, 1932, Poirier studied law and theatre before working at Radio-Canada as a comedian, host, and script assistant. She joined the National Film Board in 1960, where producer Jacques Bobet encouraged her transition behind the camera. She broke a long-standing male barrier by becoming the institution’s first female staff director, helming the 1963 work 30 Minutes, Mister Plummer.

She was the first francophone woman to become a director and producer at the NFB, and the series of films that she co-directed in the 1970s, En tant que femmes, helped to definitively cement the place of women within the institution, stated Suzanne Guèvremont, government film commissioner and president of the NFB, in a press release. This is a major loss for the film community and for Quebec.

In 1968, Poirier directed De mère en fille, a documentary-style fiction exploring motherhood and early work-family balance. The project made her the first woman to direct a feature-length film in Quebec across all categories. Four years later, Mireille Dansereau released La vie rêvée, marking the first fiction feature directed by a woman in the province. Poirier’s subsequent film credits included the shorts La fin des étés with Geneviève Bujold and Les Ludions.

Advocating for Women Through Critical Cinema

Throughout a four-decade career, Poirier focused her work on women’s lives, rights, and struggles against injustice. Marcel Jean, director of the Cinémathèque québécoise and a film historian, noted her unique contribution. She was one of the first women to make films in Quebec and, above all, she brought a true cinema that introduced critical thinking within a feminist framework, he observed.

Her filmography tackled difficult social subjects well ahead of their time. examined abortion access, while Mourir à tue-tête addressed rape and violence against women. Actress Julie Vincent, who played the lead role of Suzanne in Mourir à tue-tête, maintained a decades-long friendship with the director after reviewing roughly 200 interview files Poirier had compiled with women before shooting. Vincent remembered her as a fighter and a visionary. She transformed views on the condition of women in Quebec, Vincent said.

Reflecting on her career during an October 2010 appearance at the Cinémathèque québécoise alongside filmmaker Monique Fortier, Poirier summarized her artistic drive. I had blatant demands that had to be made regarding the recognition, autonomy, and identity of women, she told La Presse at the time. There was a part of participation in society that was eluding us. She received the Jutra-Hommage award in 2002 in recognition of her lifetime achievements.