The death was announced today of French-Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée aged just 58. Vallée was best known for the controversial AIDS film Dallas Buyers Club for which he received an Academy Award Nomination and which netted Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto,  Best Actor Oscars.  Plus the multi-award-winning star-studded TV series Big Little Lies which earned Vallée a Primetime Emmy Award for directing.

However, Vallée, a great ally to the LGBTQ community,  will always be remembered especially by QUEERGURU for his 2005 film C.R.A.Z.Y., one of the very best ever coming-out films. The film, set in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, tells the story of a middle-class family going in Quebec. Only being able to conceive boys, the mother prays to God to bring her a daughter but gives birth to another boy, Zachary, her fourth.  Sensitive and artistic, he is different from his brothers which leads to tensions with his father who constantly keeps trying to butch him up. As he grows up, it is more and more apparent that he is gay, a situation that the father struggles to accept.

The film was both a critical and commercial success that found an audience both inside and outside the queer community, mainly because of Vallee’s total grasp of the subject matter and his extremely sensitive handling of the family dynamics.

Today Canadian PM  Justin Trudeau said “Jean-Marc Vallée’s passion for filmmaking and storytelling was unmatched – so too was his talent. Through his work and with his art, he left a mark in Quebec, across Canada, and around the world. My thoughts are with his family, friends, and fans as they mourn his sudden passing.”

Jean-Marc Vallée March 9, 1963  -  December 26, 2021  R.I.P.