Léonard Forest

Léonard Forest (1928-2024) is a French-speaking Acadian artist, poet and filmmaker. He attended Collège Saint-Joseph de Memramcook, where he discovered cinema. There, he created a film club that caused a scandal, and wrote a film column for L'Évangéline. He was hired by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in 1953. He was General Program Director of French Production and Director of the French Television Team 1958-1959. He was one of the driving forces behind the regionalization of the NFB, with the opening of French-language offices in Acadie and Ontario. He also presided over the restructuring of the Groupe de recherche sociale, which became the Challenge for Change / Société nouvelle program. He is also the founding president of the Syndicat général du cinéma et de la télévision. He retired from the NFB in 1983, having worked on more than 130 films as screenwriter, producer, director and editor. His credits include Les aboiteaux (1955), Pêcheurs de Pomcoup (1956), Les Acadiens de la dispersion (1968), La noce est pas finie (1969) and Un soleil pas comme ailleurs (1972). Since the 1960s, he has published several poems, essays and short stories. His poems, with their gentleness and nostalgia for historic Acadia, stand in stark contrast to his films, which are militant in the spirit of the NFB. The Université de Moncton awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1992, and in 2016 he received a Prix Hommage at the Éloizes for his entire career.