Robert Morin

Born in 1949 in Montreal, Quebec, Robert Morin's prolific career began in 1971 as a cameraman for Canadian network ORTQ (similar to PBS in the United States). Eventually, Morin became a director and producer for the network and, with some of his friends, formed the production company La Cooperative de Producion Video de Montreal in 1977. Through the company, Morin directed nearly 30 short films, developing his own type of social storytelling, before taking on his first feature length work, "Tristesse Modèle Réduit" ("Scale Model Sadness") (1987). The film used the point of view of a boy with Down's syndrome to examine the alienation of modern suburban life. In 1991, his film "Requiem pour un Beau Sans-Coeur" (1991), followed the last days of an escaped criminal through the eyes of eight different acquaintances, each of whom may have been the one to ultimately betray him. The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture and Best Director at the 1991 Genie Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars. "The 4 Soldiers" (2013) was a civil war story set in the near future that was compared to the works of Terrence Malick, and followed the titular soldiers, all youths, waiting for orders in the peaceful countryside.