Noël Mitrani

Noël Mitrani was born in Toronto in 1969, but he grew up in France. A graduate of History and Philosophy at the Sorbonne, and for some time a press illustrator, Noël Mitrani launched into cinema via writing. He directed his first short film After Shave in 1999, a moving comedy set in a suburban supermarket. Three other short films followed, the last of which Les Siens (2001) addresses the confusion possible between dream and reality. In 2005, Mitrani established his own production company, StanKaz Films, and produced his first feature length film Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi (2006) with French actor Laurent Lucas. Despite the limited budget, Mitrani made it a matter of principal to shoot on 35 mm film. This film is presented in the official selection by Venice International Critics' Week (2006) and won the Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at 2006's Toronto Film Festival. His second picture The Kate Logan Affair (2010), a dark and mysterious thriller starring Alexis Bledel, is widely distributed in the world. His third picture The Military man is a drama about a former French soldier, the trauma caused by his memories of the conflict leads him towards an unhealthy relationship with women. In Après coup (2017), Mitrani dissects the insidiousness of guilt as well as the unsuspected possibilities of survival. In Cassy (2019), childhood and grieving confront some hot-button issues when sexual harassment enters the scene. Natacha Mitrani, the director's daughter, is heartbreaking in the challenging role of Cassy. Toutes les deux (Between Them, 2021) is a spy comedy that tells the attraction between two women against a background of male jealousy. His life is marked by his split cultural identity, French and Quebecois, and this, along with his fascination for the 1970s and his compulsion to depict solitary figures fighting to overcome their torments, has found its way into his work.