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To cast the central role in his coming-of-age comedy It's Not Me, I Swear! ( C'est pas moi, je le jure! ), filmmaker Philippe Falardeau made 11-year-old Quebec actor Antoine L'Écuyer an offer he couldn't refuse.

As the hyper-sensitive misfit Leon, L'Écuyer (grandson of well known Quebec actor Guy L'Écuyer) would have to smash dinnerware, jump off a cliff, climb a school building and generally wreak havoc on everything in sight. “He had the summer of his life,” laughed Falardeau during the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, where It's Not Me, I Swear!, his third feature, had its well-received world premiere. “And I had the summer of my life filming him doing those things because it's the summer I always wanted to have when I was young.”

The film, which recently won the Crystal Bear and Kinderhilfswerk Grand Prix awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, is an adaptation of two semi-autobiographical novels by Bruno Hébert, son of senator and Canada World Youth founder Jacques Hébert. Falardeau read the first book, C'est pas moi, je le jure! shortly after its publication in 1997. “I immediately started writing notes in the margins and after three or four pages called the publisher, but the rights were already taken,” he recalls. “But that became a blessing in disguise because at that time I hadn't done very much yet, especially not adapting a book or directing children.”

Falardeau, a political studies grad, got into the biz after winning the 1992-93 season of the French-Canadian TV show La Course Destination Monde, a sort of Canadian Idol for filmmakers. After that, he continued his winning ways with his 2000 feature debut The Left-Hand Side of the Fridge (TIFF's CITY-TV prize and the Claude Jutra award) and Congorama (2006), which nabbed the best original screenplay Genie in 2007.

Now with more experience, Falardeau was delighted to discover not only that the rights to Herbert's book had become available but that there was a second book, Alice court avec René, featuring a slightly older version of Leon.

“The first book was not dense enough to make a feature,” Falardeau explains, “so I used some ideas from the second book … such as Leon's mother leaving for Greece and his wondering about her life there and wanting to buy a plane ticket to go and see her.

“But the film is more about an identity crisis of a singular boy with singular urges who doesn't know what to do about them,” Falardeau adds. “At the same time he goes through all these rites of passage, like lying for the first time, going outside the family circle, falling in love and, of course, breaking and entering the neighbours' house, which is something every little boy wants to do!”

Set in a richly detailed late-sixties suburban Quebec, It's Not Me, I Swear! walks a fine line between dark physical humour and authentic emotional drama, with young Leon's behaviour becoming more destructive as his parents' obviously doomed marriage unravels. The opening scene, both disturbing and hilarious, sets the film's overall tone: Leon is attempting to hang himself in the backyard as we hear the cheery piano-driven music of Montreal's Patrick Watson (who contributes original songs to the film).

“His older brother grabs him by the legs to save him, but then runs off to get his mother, which is funny, but the humour would not work without the counterpoint of the music,” Falardeau says, adding, “Leon doesn't know what death is, but he makes these moves to provoke a response from his parents.”

While It's Not Me, I Swear! features the eccentric energy of Falardeau's previous work, its portrayal of complex childhood emotions gives his filmmaking a new depth. “In the book, everything happens in Leon's head, and you are never completely sure if things that happen are real or imagined. In the film, I wanted everything to be real and this character to be responsible for what he's doing.” Still, he says, “I'm not promoting what this kid is doing.”

Special to The Globe and Mail