Martin Villeneuve

Life and career

Cirque du Soleil alumnus and TED2013 speaker Martin Villeneuve studied film at Concordia University and graphic design at Université du Québec à Montréal. In 2002, he received a grant from the commercial creativity agency Sid Lee for the quality of his portfolio. In the years that followed, he worked as an artistic director with this agency and helped create award-winning advertising campaigns for Cirque du Soleil. He found the name for three shows: Zumanity, KÀ and Corteo, as well as for Guy Laliberté’s ONE DROP Foundation. When the agency (formerly known as Diesel) changed its name in 2006, Villeneuve had the idea for the anagram Sid Lee. He also directed numerous TV commercials for Cirque du Soleil, in addition to music videos and short films.

As an author, Martin Villeneuve has created the comic book La voix du tonnerre (Les 400 coups, 2004), as well as the two graphic novels Mars et Avril (Sid Lee & la Pastèque, 2002-2006), which were all released to critical acclaim and multiple awards. In 2012, the movie adaptation of Mars et Avril which Villeneuve wrote, directed and produced, was brought to the big screen with success. This science fiction film, starring Jacques Languirand, Caroline Dhavernas, Paul Ahmarani and Robert Lepage, premiered at the 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Czech Republic. Mars et Avril was released in Canada in Fall 2012 and toured in more than 20 international festivals. Martin Villeneuve was nominated for best adapted screenplay at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards for Mars et Avril, and he also won an Imaging the Future Award at the Neuchâtel International Fantasy Film Festival in Switzerland.

In 2014, Martin Villeneuve made his acting debut in his short film Imelda, impersonating his own grandmother, for which he won the Union des Artistes’ Best Actor Award at the 12th Prends ça court ! Gala. The film also won Quebec’s Best Short Film Award at Festival Images en vues, as well as a Special Mention from the jury in the category Best Canadian Short Film at the FICFA. He is currently writing the script for a feature film based on the character to be produced by GO Films in Montreal. He is also working with European comic book masters Benoît Sokal and François Schuiten on an animated fantasy feature film, Aquarica, on a sci-fi movie with Pressman Film, tentatively titled The Other World, and on From Beyond, a sci-fi/horror feature film project written by Ray Gower and inspired by the H.P. Lovecraft short story, to be produced by Darius Films & Shoreline Entertainment.

In August 2016, Martin Villeneuve directed the first episodes of the second season of Real Detective for Investigation Discovery Channel and Netflix, starring Daniel Cudmore and Cristina Rosato. In September 2016, it was announced that he was signed to write and direct a live action movie based on the Quebec cult comic book series Red Ketchup. The film will be co-written by the authors of the series, Pierre Fournier and Réal Godbout.

TED Talk

On February 27, 2013, Martin Villeneuve gave a TED Talk about Mars et Avril at TED2013, thereby becoming the first (and so far the only) speaker from Quebec invited to this prestigious event that took place in Long Beach, California. Prior to his talk, the opening sequence of the film was shown, as well as a three minutes overview of the steps leading from the green screen to the final images. Martin Villeneuve's talk, “How I made an impossible film,” was released on TED.com on June 7, 2013, and a month later was added to TED's movie magic list, featuring famed directors such as James Cameron and J.J. Abrams. The talk has been viewed more than a million times across all platforms and subtitled in 30 languages. Since then, Mars et Avril is being referred to as the “Impossible Film”, has been sold to the U.S. and is now available on GaiamTV. The film is also available on Amazon and iTunes in the U.S., Canada, Francophone Europe and the UK, among other digital platforms.

Selected filmography

Awards and mentions