Nancy Grant

Career

Grant went to McGill University in Montreal, Canada in the early 2000s, studying psychology and international development. She graduated in 2005, and shortly after realized her true passion of cinema. With Sylvain Corbeil, she founded Metafilms in Montreal in 2003. She is attracted to filmmakers with an individual voice whom she can support in long-term and frequent collaborations, including directors Xavier Dolan and Maxime Giroux.

Tom a la ferme

Nancy took the main stage when she collaborated with Xavier Dolan in 2012. They have created 3 films together since then. Their first project was Tom at the Farm (Tom à la ferme) in 2013, a film based on the play by Michel Marc Bouchard. It was a part of the main screen competition at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, in the special presentation at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and was a leading nominee for the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards. The psychological thriller follows Tom (played by Dolan himself), a man who has suddenly lost his lover Guillaume, to a remote country home for the funeral where Guillaume's family expects a woman in his place. He decides to keep his relations with Guillaume a secret, but finds himself in an unexpected game with Guillaume's aggressive and curious brother. The film was generally well received as a Hitchcockian Montreal psychological drama thriller; suspense and secrets with country landscapes. It was also criticized for Dolan as self-obsessed screenwriter, director, co-producer, editor and actor. The film was nominated for 8 awards at the Canadian Screen Awards, and for two at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the prestigious FIPRESCI Award.

Mommy

Dolan and Grant continued to collaborate. Shortly after their first project, they produced College Boy, a music video for the French rock band Indochine. Afterwards in 2014, they embarked on Mommy, which brought Nancy to the main stage. It is a story of a recently widowed mother and her sometimes violent son with ADHD, trying to cope with their new life. A new neighbour offers her help as the family searches for hope and balance. 90% of both critics and audiences raved about the film and Dolan's authentic style; "Dolan loves close-ups and he gives his actors every chance to demonstrate their talent for ringing the emotional changes in a single take". The film was shot in a square 1:1 ratio, a refreshing sight in theatres. "I just wanted to shoot portrait aspect ratio that would allow me to be very close to characters, avoid distractions to the left and right of the frame and have the audience look the characters right in the eye", explains Dolan on his unique choice of framing. The film has become one of the greatest successes in Québécois cinema in the past decades, receiving over 29 awards internationally.

Grant and Dolan already have another project in action, Dolan's first English-language film The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, a "showbiz satire with a big-name cast: Jessica Chastain, Kit Harington (Game of Thrones), Susan Sarandon, and Kathy Bates".

Félix et Meira

While Nancy was producing Mommy, she was also producing Felix and Meira, directed by Maxime Giroux. Inspired by a neighborhood he used to live in with a large Hasidic Jewish population, it is an unconventional romance between a young man mourning his dying father and a young Hasidic wife a few blocks away. It was selected to represent Canada as a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards. Most critics and audiences praised the film for its sensitive depiction of the Hasidic community. It was authentic to his community, with English, French and Yiddish spoken. The actors were courageous former Hasidic Jews that have left the community. "I learned a lot about my city, the community I live in and [myself] also. And I think that's why I go to the cinema and I think that's why I live — to learn more about other people." Producing the film was in a real indie fashion; they did not have the secure funding while filming but they still went for it, "we were shooting it with $500,000, that's it, and we shot in Venice, Italy, and in Brooklyn", explains Grant about producing Félix et Meira at the same time as Mommy. The film had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, where it also won the prestigious Best Canadian Film award, beating Mommy among other films.

Awards and nominations

Nancy won the Best Film award at the 17th Jutra Awards for her production of Mommy. The film was included in "Canada's Top Ten" feature films of 2014 selected by filmmakers and industry professionals at TIFF. She was also awarded the 2014 CMPA Feature Film Producer's Award.