Ahead of Cinéfranco, Stéphane Lapointe talks dark comedy

Now in its 18th year, Cinéfranco traditionally offers a little of this, a little of that and a lot of diversity when it comes to Francophone cinema. Comedies, of course, are well represented, what with Xavier Diskeuve's clever laugher Jacques a Vu (Belgium), Eric Lavaine's Barbecue (France), in which the old beefs of middle-aged buddies are served up hot, and Les Maîtres du Suspense, an offbeat dark comedy about voodoo, writer's block and the literary world, from Quebec's Stéphane Lapointe. The writer-director spoke to us from Montreal in advance of his visit to Toronto for the English Canada premiere of his film on April 17.

You recently said in an interview that you wanted to come up with something different with this film, and something you haven't been seeing enough of in Quebec. What were you shooting for with Les Maîtres du suspense?

I like the mood of something like Martin Scorsese's After Hours, with it starting a bit serious, but then sliding and sliding slowly into hell.

You also said you don't like being bored at the cinema. You're talking about the formulaic films that studios are making?

We see these films, where we know the recipe. We know what will happen. Hollywood doesn't like chances. Indie movies maybe more, but not in the big films. I wanted to surprise myself while I was writing, and I wanted to surprise the audience.

You sound like your star novelist in Les Maîtres du suspense, who says he likes his readers and that he hates being bored.

Exactly. But he's a womanizer. He wants to be excited by life. He wants the same thing from his writing, but his lifestyle takes up too much space.

With its formulaic films, can't we say Hollywood gives mainstream audiences exactly what they want, and that it lets audiences know exactly what they're going to get?

Yes, but I think we're in an era where we're seeing edgy television series like Breaking Bad, House of Cards and True Detective. We like these edgy stories where the characters are interesting and funny, but dark. I wanted to play in those tones. It's not going for laughs every 30 seconds. It's not for everybody.

You obviously had the support of your producers, who let you shoot parts of the film in Louisiana. What was behind you having a cross-cultural component to the story?

As a director, I love to bring Quebec somewhere else – to have links with other countries, other cultures. I wanted to get out of the kitchen of our little Quebec. I'm excited by that.