Nancy Grant

Nancy Grant is a French-Québécois Canadian film producer. She was born in the small village of Petit-Matane, on the Gaspé Peninsula in the north of Quebec, Canada. She founded Metafilms in Montreal in 2003 with Sylvain Corbeil and frequently collaborates with Xavier Dolan and Maxime Giroux.

Grant co-owns the production company Sons of Manual with director Xavier Dolan.

Tom à la ferme Grant 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 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, especially in its use of suspense and secrets with country landscapes. Some criticized the film for what they saw as Dolan's self-obsession, as he held the roles of 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 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. The film was shot in a square 1:1 ratio. Dolan said of the choice, "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". The film has received over 29 awards internationally.

Grant and Dolan followed up in 2018 with 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, Susan Sarandon, and Kathy Bates". Most critics and audiences praised the film for its sensitive depiction of the Hasidic community. It was an authentic depiction of Giroux's former community, with English, French and Yiddish spoken onscreen. The actors were former Hasidic Jews that have left the community, a choice often viewed as courageous. The film had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the prestigious Best Canadian Film award, beating Mommy among other films.

Filmography

Awards and nominations Grant 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.