Rock Demers

Early Life and Education

Rock Demers was born in Sainte Cécile-de-Lévrard, a small village in the Centre-du-Québec region. He was the eldest of eight children and grew up poor during the Great Depression. Demers’s father was a farmer, and his mother was a school teacher. Demers said that despite the poverty of his youth, he nonetheless had a happy childhood. He believed that happiness in childhood helped children better handle the stresses of adult life.

Demers was introduced to cinema by his uncle Henri shortly after Demers and his family moved to Montreal in the early 1950s. Demers initially wanted to become a teacher and studied pedagogy in Montreal. During this time he worked as a nurse at the Montréal Sacré-Cœur Hospital. He also founded cinema clubs at his school and the hospital.

With some money saved up and a small grant, Demers went to Paris in the early 1950s to study audio-visual techniques. At the end of his studies, and with only a few hundred dollars in his pocket, Demers decided to hitchhike across Eastern Europe. Doing so took him behind the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War to Poland, Hungary, and what was then Czechoslovakia. It proved vitally important to his career, as Demers met numerous people with whom he later collaborated. This included Břetislav Pojar, a Czech puppeteer, animator and filmmaker. It was during this adventure that Demers decided he would devote his career to creating films for children.

Early Career

In 1960, Rock Demers began working in film distribution in Quebec. From 1962 to 1967, he managed the Festival international du film de Montréal. One of his innovations was to add a children’s section to the festival.

In 1963, Demers co-founded the Quebec film conservatory Cinémathèque canadienne (now Cinématèque québecoise). In 1965, he founded Faroun Films, which specialized in the distribution of films for children. By the early 1970s, Faroun Films expands to distribute arthouse and experimental films, as well as into film production. In 1970, Demers co-produced and invested in the production of the children’s film Le Martien de Noël (The Christmas Martian). It showcases the work of major Quebec artists, including cinematographer Bernard Gosselin, actor Marcel Sabourin and automatistes artist Jean-Paul-Armand Mousseau.

Career Highlights

In 1977, Rock Demers was named president and then director general of the Institut québécois du cinéma (IQC), an organization tasked with supporting the Quebec film industry. It is now known as the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC). Also in 1977, Demers helped launch the Montreal World Film Festival (known in French as Festival des films du monde). Demers left the ICQ to found Les productions La Fête in 1980.

Just before Demers turned 50, he read a story in La Presse about teen suicides. The article led him to conclude that films should give people, particularly children and young people, an appetite for life. Demers was so moved by the article that it inspired him to create the Contes pour tous/Tales for All film series.

“I was at an age where I knew life was hard, but that it was worth living, I asked myself what I could do for some youth who were reflecting on the subject, so that they realized it was worth continuing.”

Throughout the 1980s, Demers was involved in international co-productions with Polish (The Young Magician, Waldemar Dziki, 1987), Hungarian (Bye Bye Chaperon Rouge, Márta Mészáros, 1989), and Romanian filmmakers (La Championne, Elisabeta Bostan, 1991). In a rare acting role, Demers appears in Gilles Carle’s 1983 film version of the classic Quebec novel Maria Chapdelaine.

In 1984, Demers produced André Melançon’s La Guerre des tuques (The Dog Who Stopped the War.) It won the 1985 Golden Reel Award (now Golden Screen Award) at the Genie Awards as the highest-grossing Canadian film of the year. The film was an international success as well. Demers stated that millions of people saw it in the Soviet Union.

In 1985, Demers produced Michael Rubbo’s The Peanut Butter Solution, arguably his best-known film in English Canada. In 1986, he produced Melançon’s Bach et Bottine. It ran for six months at a Parisian cinema on the Champs Elysée. In 1990, he produced Rubbo’s Vincent and Me, which won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Special.

In 1991, Demers co-produced Why Havel?, a documentary on Czech writer and politician Vaclav Havel. In 1994, Demers co-produced Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Memoirs, a biographical mini-series about former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

Demers continued working well into his later years. At age 81, he released the 24th installment in the Tales for All series: The Outlaw League (2014). In 2015, having worked in the film industry for 55 years, he sold his production company to filmmaker Dominic James. Demers died from heart failure in Montreal on 17 August 2021 at the age of 87.

Honours

It is estimated that Rock Demers received more than 250 awards and nominations during his lifetime. In 1987, he received the Prix Albert Tessier for outstanding contributions to Quebec cinema. In 1988, he won the Air Canada Award from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television for outstanding contribution to the Canadian film industry. He was awarded the Special Jury Prize for contributing to the improvement and promotion of the French language from the Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Council of Québec in 1990.

Select Awards

• Golden Reel Award (The Dog Who Stopped the War), Genie Awards (1985)
• Prix Albert Tessier (1987)
• Air Canada Award, Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television (1988)
• Golden Reel Award (Tadpole and the Whale), Genie Awards (1989)
• François Truffaut Prize, Giffoni Film Festival (1989)
• Special Achievement Award, Estoril Coast International Film Festival (1990)
• Special Jury Prize, Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Council of Québec (1990)
• Blue Ribbon, Banff Festival of Canadian Television for Children (1990)
• Canadian Video Industry Award of Achievement, Premiere Magazine (1990)
• Achievement Award, Canadian Film and Television Production Association (1990)
• Outstanding Contribution Award, Festival International du Film Francophone (1990)
• Life Achievement Award, Canadian Film Celebration in Calgary (1991)
• Officer, Order of Canada (1992)
• Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres de France (1992)
• Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (1998)
• Special Lifetime Achievement Award, Banff Television Festival (2001)
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Jutra Awards (now Prix Iris) (2003)
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Isfahan International Festival of Films for Children & Young Adults (2005)
• Companion, Order of Canada (2007)