I come from a deeply white and monocultural suburb of Quebec City. In 2014, when I first moved to Montreal, not far from a pastel castle bordering the highway, I was strongly interested in the different cultures that were close to me and that I was brushing past every day in Villeray and Saint-Michel.

If in À l’ouest de Pluton I filmed what I knew by heart—the suburbs and my own teenage years—, this time I wanted to know more about these neighbours whose past backgrounds were so different from mine. With a desire to film this intense period of life that is adolescence once again, I inquired as to who these young people hailing from everywhere really are. They who form an important yet oft-forgotten part of our society and the Quebec of tomorrow.

After two years of research and meetings in high schools and at the St-Michel Youth Forum, I got to know some of these young people whom I found very inspiring and enlightened, and they confirmed me in the idea of making a film in which they would be the protagonists. The film was built with these young people as a work in progress. Over the course of many workshops, rehearsals and a pandemic, a real complicity was established between them and me, then between them and my team.

Gamma Rays is also a film about encountering otherness. In an increasingly individualistic world, what is the place of the other, to what extent should we care about the other and how they see the world?

Through humour and small dramas, I wanted to dive truthfully into the reality of these young people, who carry this film with so much talent, authenticity and humanity.

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Chaimaa Zinedine, Chris Kanyembuga, Yassine Jabrane, Hani Laroum, Océane Garçon-Gravel

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DIRECTING: Henry Bernadet

SCREENPLAY: Henry Bernadet, Nicolas Krief,  Isabelle Brouillette

PRODUCTION: Vuk Stojanovic, Henry Bernadet, Jean-Martin Gagnon (Coop Vidéo de Montréal)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Philémon Crête, Nathan B Foisy, Philppe St-Gelais

SOUND DESIGN: Samuel Carrier, Olivier Rogers-Larouche, Aras, Benoit Dame, Martin M. Messier

ORIGINAL SCORE: Maxime Veilleux, Mathieu Charbonneau, Simon Trottier

EDITING: Jules Saulnier

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