Léa Pool

Swiss-born filmmaker Léa Pool makes thoughtful French-language dramas from Quebec, Canada, that have met with much acclaim at international film festivals. She came to Canada in the '70s to study film and video, where she made her final project, Laurent Lamerre, Portier in 1978. After teaching for several years at the University of Quebec, she made the black-and-white short film Strass Café, which did quite well at festivals. In 1984, she made her feature debut as a writer/director with La Femme de l'Hôtel (A Woman in Transit). This was followed by a portrait of the sculpture artist Anne Trister and the war drama À Corps Perdu (Straight for the Heart), about a Canadian journalist in Nicaragua. During the '90s, she directed several documentaries and programs for Quebec television, including Hotel Chronicles and Gabrielle Roy. Continuing to work on the big screen as well, she was one of six filmmakers (along with Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema, and other Canadians) to direct a vignette for the anthology film Montréal Vu Par.... She traveled back to the Swiss Alps for her next feature, La Demoiselle Sauvage (The Savage Woman), and explored the romance of a Canadian train ride in Mouvements du Désir (Desire in Motion). After taking some time off to have her daughter Giulia, she returned to feature filmmaking with the coming-of-age drama Emporte-Moi (Set Me Free), set in working-class Montreal. She made her first English-language film with the lesbian boarding-school romance Lost and Delirious, based on a novel by Susan Swan. She then traveled to Costa Rica to shoot her next film, the family adventure The Blue Butterfly, starring William Hurt.

~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide