Émile Gaudreault

Filmmaker Émile Gaudreault was born in Jonquiere, Quebec in 1964. He first became known as a director of light relationship comedies which consistently pulled large audiences throughout Canada before moving into lighthearted action film often featuring mismatched lead characters. His first success was the screenplay for "Louis 19, le roi des ondes" (1994), a French-Canadian comedy that became the country's highest-grossing film of the year. It was later remade by Ron Howard as "EdTV" (1999). Gaudreault made his feature directorial debut with "Nuit de Noces" (2001), which he also scripted; like his first film, it went on to be the highest grossing Canadian film that year. In 2003, his first English-language film, "Mambo Italiano," was released in both the US and Canada; a gay romance set in Montreal's large Italian-Canadian community, it received strong reviews and was Gaudreault's biggest success so far in the United States. Another English-language comedy, "Surviving My Mother" (2007), followed, starring Ellen David and Caroline Dhavernas as a bickering mother and daughter trying to mend their relationship. Gaudreault's next film, the comic crime caper "De Père en flic" (2009), became not only Canada's highest-grossing film in 2009, but also highest grossing French-language film in Canada, ever. The dark crime comedy "Le Sens de l'Humour" (2011) was followed by the quirky buddy comedy "Le Vrai du Faux" (2014).