Maxime Giroux

With an eye for unconventional stories and troubled characters, filmmaker Maxime Giroux made a profound entrance into the independent film scene when his short film "Les jours" (2006) won the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Quebec native had begun his career a few years before, finding early success directing the music video for Montreal based singer/songwriter Sam Roberts' song "Don't Walk Away Eileen" in 2002. Giroux followed this by directing many more music videos, including "Parce qu'on vient de loin" by Corneille and "Into Your Hideout" by Pilate. With "Les jours," Giroux finally brought a story to the screen that he had written himself. Two years later, he took the next step in his evolution as a filmmaker, making the jump to feature films with "Demain" (2008). Next came "Jo pour Jonathan" (2010) and the short film "La tête en bas" (2013). Giroux scored another critical coup with his film "Felix and Meira" (2014), which followed the story of an affair between a Hasidic woman and a non-Jewish man. Inspired by the Hasidic community in his own Montreal neighborhood, Giroux did copious research for the film, transcending the borders of the often insular Hasidic community to ensure that his movie's representations were accurate. Praised for its gentle, poignant tone, the film found Giroux returning to the Toronto film festival, this time winning the award for Best Canadian Feature Film.