Claude Demers (born March 10, 1962) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

filmmaker from

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. He is most noted for his series of documentary films that were indirectly inspired by, or directly about, his experiences as an adoptee. The birth son of an Italian Canadian father and a québécois mother, he was placed for adoption in infancy. He directed a number of short films before releasing his feature debut, ''The Invention of Love (L'Invention de l'amour)'', in 2000. He began his foray into documentary films inspired by his birth heritage in 2006 with ''Barbers: A Men's Story (Barbiers, Une histoire d'hommes)'', a film about the culture of Italian Canadian

barber A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a barbershop or the barber's. Barbershops have been noted places of social interaction and public discourse ...

s in Montreal; he followed up in 2009 with '' Ladies in Blue (Les dames en bleu)'', a film about women of his birth mother's generation who idolized pop chansonnier Michel Louvain. '' Where I'm From (D'ou je viens)'', released in 2014, began a series of much more personal films that more directly confronted his own experiences as an adoptee. This series continued in 2019 with '' A Woman, My Mother (Une femme, ma mère)'', which addressed some of the unanswered questions he still had about his birth mother's life, and in 2024 with '' Diary of a Father (Journal d'un père)'', which addressed the impact of both his birth and adoptive fathers on his own sense of fatherhood as parent to a daughter he cannot see as often as he would like, as she lives in another country with her mother."Paul-Claude Demers : après la quête de la mère, endosser le rôle de père"

Ici Radio-Canada Première Ici Radio-Canada Première (formerly Première Chaîne) is a Canadian French-language radio network, the news and information service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (known as Société Radio-Canada in French), the public broadcaster of ...

, June 3, 2024.

Filmography

*''The Invention of Love (L'Invention de l'amour)'' - 2000 *''Barbers: A Men's Story (Barbiers, Une histoire d'hommes)'' - 2006 *'' Ladies in Blue (Les dames en bleu)'' - 2009 *'' Where I'm From (D'ou je viens)'' - 2014 *''My Last Summer (Mon dernier été)'' - 2016 *'' A Woman, My Mother (Une femme, ma mère)'' - 2019 *'' Diary of a Father (Journal d'un père)'' - 2023

Awards

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Demers, Claude 1962 births Living people 21st-century Canadian screenwriters 21st-century Canadian male writers Canadian documentary film directors Canadian male screenwriters Canadian adoptees Film directors from Quebec Screenwriters from Quebec Canadian people of Italian descent