Micheline Lanctôt

Micheline Lanctôt (born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian actress, film director, screenwriter, and musician.

Biography Lanctôt was born in Frelighsburg, Quebec. Her post-secondary education was in music, fine arts, and theatre at Collège Jésus-Marie in Outremont, and in art history at the Université de Montréal and the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal; she later studied film animation at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and then at Gerald Potterton's studios, Potterton Productions, where she remained for four years.

Lanctôt began her acting career in 1972, winning a Canadian Film Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Gilles Carle's The True Nature of Bernadette (La vraie nature de Bernadette). Since then, she has appeared in a wide variety of film and television roles, such as Carle's The Heavenly Bodies (Les Corps Célestes), Ted Kotcheff's award-winning The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Claude Chabrol's Blood Relatives and Guy Fournier's Radio-Canada TV series Jamais deux sans toi.

She has directed for the theatre also, directing Oleanna by David Mamet for the Théâtre de Quat'Sous in Montreal in 1994, and in 1999, Bousille et les justes by Gratien Gélinas for the Théâtre du Rideau Vert.

She began her live-action film-directing career with The Handyman (L'Homme à tout faire) (1980), nominated for best direction and for best film at the Genie Awards in 1981. This success was followed by Sonatine (1984), which launched the career of Pascale Bussières and won both the Genie Award for Best Director at the 6th Genie Awards in 1985, and the now-defunct Silver Lion for Best First Film (1983-1987) at the 41st Venice International Film Festival. She won the 1995 Prix Guy-L'Écuyer for L'oreille d'un sourd.

Since 1982, Lanctôt has been a part-time instructor in the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University.

Lanctôt defended Gaétan Soucy's novel The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches (La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes) in the 2004 edition of Le Combat des livres, broadcast on Première Chaîne.

In 2016 she was the curator of the Festival Vues dans la tête de... film festival in Rivière-du-Loup. She is also a matron of the Prix collégial du cinéma québécois, an annual program engaging film studies students in Quebec CEGEPs to present an award for the year's best Quebec film.

Awards and recognition Winner of an Etrog (now known as Genie), best performance by a lead actress (1972) Winner of the Genie, best achievement in direction, for Sonatine (1984) Winner of the Silver Lion, Venice Film Festival for best first work, Sonatine (1984) Recipient of the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (2003)

Filmography Film Year Title Director Writer 1975 A Token Gesture 1980 The Handyman (L'Homme à tout faire) 1984 Sonatine 1987 The Pursuit of Happiness (La Poursuite du bonheur) 1988 Onzième spéciale The Heat Line (La ligne de chaleur) 1993 Two Can Play (Deux actrices) 1994 A Hero's Life (La Vie d'un héros) 2003 Juniper Tree (Le Piège d'Issoudun) 2009 Suzie 2011 For the Love of God (Pour l'amour de Dieu) 2015 The Handout (Autrui) 2016 9 (9, le film) 2019 A Way of Life (Une manière de vivre)

Acting roles

The True Nature of Bernadette (La Vraie nature de Bernadette) - 1972 The Heavenly Bodies (Les Corps célestes) - 1973 Noël et Juliette - 1973 Souris, tu m'inquiètes - 1973 Voyage to Grand Tartarie (Voyage en Grande Tartarie) - 1974 The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - 1974 Child Under a Leaf - 1974 Little Tougas (Ti-Cul Tougas) - 1976 Blood Relatives (Les Liens du sang) - 1978 Blood and Guts - 1978 A Scream from Silence (Mourir à tue-tête) - 1979 The Coffin Affair (L'Affaire Coffin) - 1980 The Ear of a Deaf Man (L'Oreille d'un sourd) - 1996 Heads or Tails (J'en suis!) - 1997 The Revenge of the Woman in Black (La Vengeance de la femme en noir) - 1997 Streetheart (Le Coeur au poing) - 1998 Now or Never (Aujourd'hui ou jamais) - 1998

The Long Winter (Quand je serai parti... vous vivrez encore) - 1999 Le Petit ciel - 1999 Women Without Wings - 2002 How My Mother Gave Birth to Me During Menopause (Comment ma mère accoucha de moi durant sa ménopause) - 2003 The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions barbares) - 2003 Children of the Setting Suns - 2003 A Year in the Death of Jack Richards - 2004 Familia - 2004 Good Neighbours - 2010 Sarah Prefers to Run (Sarah préfère la course) - 2013 Winter Claire (Claire l'hiver) - 2017 Laughter (Le Rire) - 2020 Family Game (Arsenault et fils) - 2022 Frontiers (Frontières) - 2023 The Nature of Love (Simple comme Sylvain) - 2023 You Are Not Alone (Vous n'êtes pas seul) - 2024 Where Souls Go (Où vont les âmes?) - 2025

Television

Actress - 1977, 1996 - 1996 - 1998 Le Pollock - 1999 Tag (2000) - 2002 - 2004 - 2004 Tripping the Wire: A Stephen Tree Mystery - 2005 - 2012-2015 The Disappearance - 2017

Director Eve (2003) The Stones (2004) Les Guerriers (2004) (Also writer)