Corey Payette's musical theatre production Les Filles du Roi transforms into a film at VIFF, October 5 and 8
Full-length feature details the arrival of French settlers in present-day Montreal in English, French, and Kanien’kéha (Mohawk)
Les Filles du Roi.
Urban Ink presents Les Filles du Roi at the Vancouver International Film Festival on October 5 at 8:45 pm at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, and October 8 at 12:30 pm at the Rio Theatre
NEW FRANCE, 1665 (present-day Montreal) is the setting for director Corey Payette’s award-winning musical theatre production Les Filles du Roi, which premiered at Urban Ink in 2018.
Les Filles du Roi was scheduled to embark on a national tour—but then the pandemic hit, forcing Payette and co-writer Julie McIsaac to pivot. Now, the story has been adapted into a powerful full-length feature film told in English, French, and Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) that’s set to have its Canadian premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival this week.
The worlds of Kateri, a young Kanien'kehà:ka (Mohawk) girl, and her brother Jean-Baptiste are flung upside-down when settlers from France known as “les filles du roi” (the king’s daughters)—unmarried women—are sent by Louis XIV to populate the colony of New France with the male soldiers and workers residing there.
One fille du roi in particular, Marie-Jeanne Lespérance, forms an unlikely bond with Kateri and Jean-Baptiste, setting the stage for a tale that offers Indigenous perspective to a part of history often overwhelmed by settler points of view.
Kaitlyn Yott plays Kateri, Raes Calvert is Jean-Baptiste, and McIsaac herself plays the role of Marie-Jeanne Lespérance in the film, which was shot entirely in Vancouver with a local cast.
Corey Payette. Photo by Luke Fontana
Payette, a Mattagami First Nation theatre artist with French Canadian and Irish ancestries, wears many hats. He’s an interdisciplinary storyteller, playwright, composer, producer, and director, who is continuing a recent foray into filmmaking with Les Filles du Roi. Payette moves through themes of cultural healing, colonization, reconciliation, and Indigenous language revitalization in his catalogue of works, including the original 2017 musical Children of God, which concentrates on the impact residential school has on an Oji-Cree family.
In 2021, Payette directed Stories that Transform Us at the Vancouver International Film Festival, a documentary that celebrates Urban Ink’s 20th anniversary through conversations with the three folks who have served as its artistic director: founder Marie Clements, Diane Roberts, and Payette, who assumed the role in 2014.
Payette is also the recipient of the inaugural British Columbia Reconciliation Award, which honours community leaders who are working to further reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
After each screening of Les Filles du Roi at VIFF, a Q&A featuring Payette and the crew will be held with the audience. More details from Urban Ink are available here.
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