- Height5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
- Martin Villeneuve is a Montreal-based screenwriter, director, producer and actor. He studied film production at Concordia University and graphic design at Université du Québec à Montréal. Martin began his career as a writer and graphic artist in 2002. His comic book "La voix du tonnerre" and his graphic novels "Mars et Avril" (volumes 1 & 2) were released to critical acclaim. Martin then worked for 10 years as a Creative Director in advertising, creating campaigns for several Cirque du Soleil shows including "Zumanity," "KÀ" and "Corteo". He also directed TV commercials for Cirque, in addition to music videos and documentary shorts, yet his first love always remained film.
In 2012, he wrote, directed and produced his debut feature film, Mars and April (2012), based on his graphic novels and starring Caroline Dhavernas of Hannibal (2013), and internationally renowned stage director Robert Lepage. This pioneering sci-fi drama received 10 nominations, including one for "Best Adapted Screenplay" at the Canadian Screen Awards, and toured in more than 20 festivals worldwide, starting with a world premiere in Karlovy Vary. Mars and April (2012) has been described by io9 as "one of the most beautiful, and immersive, sci-fi worlds ever put on film." The inventiveness of the film's production led to a TED Talk in Long Beach, California, making Martin the third filmmaker to receive the invitation - the other two being James Cameron and J.J. Abrams. So far, he is the first and only TED speaker to come out of Quebec. His TED Talk, Martin Villeneuve: How I made an impossible film (2013), has been subtitled in 33 languages and viewed over a million times.
In 2015, Martin won Union des Artistes' "Best Actor" award for his performance in his short comedy film Imelda (2014), in which he plays his own grandmother. Villeneuve shot two sequels to his short, released in Fall 2020; Imelda 2: le notaire (2020) opened the QCFF and won the Cinémental Award for Best Canadian Short Film 2020, and Imelda 3: Simone (2020) opened the FCIAT in front of a real audience despite the Covid crisis. His second feature film, Les 12 travaux d'Imelda (2022) - starring Robert Lepage, Ginette Reno, Michel Barrette, Anne-Marie Cadieux, and himself as Imelda - had its world premiere at the QCFF, and hit theaters across Quebec on October 28th, 2022. The movie was also screened at the 2022 Whistler International Film Festival, where it won the award for "Best Editing" in a Borsos Competition film. In 2023, Villeneuve won the "Best Actor" award at Dieppe's Canadian Film Festival, in France, for his role of Imelda, as well as the "Best Director" award at the Canada China International Film Festival.
Martin Villeneuve was the showrunner, co-writer, and director of Red Ketchup (2023), a dark comedy based on Quebec's cult graphic novels. Produced by Sphere Animation, this 20-episode animated series aired on Adult Swim in English and on Télétoon la nuit in French. Villeneuve also lent his voice to the character of Bill Bélisle in the French version of the show, which held the top spot on Télétoon la nuit during its broadcast.
In 2024, he was President of the Jury at Dieppe's Canadian Film Festival, in France.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Imelda Films Inc.
- RelativesDenis Villeneuve(Sibling)
- Martin Villeneuve, brother of director Denis Villeneuve (known for films like Arrival (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Dune (2021)), has carved his own path in the world of filmmaking. Despite their shared surname, Martin's creative journey has always been independent and self-driven. In an interview with TVA News on April 2, 2012, theater director and filmmaker Robert Lepage marveled at the Villeneuve brothers' artistic achievements, humorously pondering what kind of Rice Krispies their mother served them for breakfast. More recently, Lepage emphasized Martin's individuality, highlighting that being "the brother of" didn't provide him any special advantages or privileges, as evident by his sci-fi epic Mars and April (2012) which took him seven years to make on a shoestring budget, and in his nine-year endeavor, Les 12 travaux d'Imelda (2022), which he self-produced.
- When the Montreal commercial creativity agency Diesel changed its name in 2006, Martin Villeneuve had the idea for the anagram Sid Lee.
- How do you pay for something that you can't afford? Martin Villeneuve needed seven not-yet-made musical instruments, inspired by women's bodies, for the movie Mars and April (2012). Only he had no budget for them. So he got someone else to pay for it - he sold the hypothetical instruments to Cirque du Soleil and got to use them in the movie for free. And he presented an artist friend with a dream project, in creating these wildly imaginative props.
- Back when he was studying filmmaking and graphic design, Martin Villeneuve created film posters, most notoriously the one for Québec-Montréal (2002) showing the pictograph of a moose screwing a car, which earned him an award for "Best Advertising Campaign" for a movie.
- Martin Villeneuve found the name for three Cirque du Soleil shows: "Zumanity", "KÀ" and "Corteo," as well as for Guy Laliberté's ONE DROP Foundation.
- [at TED2013] Problems are hidden opportunities, and constraints can actually boost creativity. If people tell you it's impossible, it's an even better reason to want to do it. People have a tendency to see the problem rather than the final result. If you treat the problems as possibilities, life will start to dance with you in the most amazing ways.
- [at TED2013, speaking of Mars and April (2012)] I made a film that was impossible to make, only I didn't know it was impossible. This is the kind of movie I wanted to make ever since I was a kid, reading comic books.
- [in The Canadian Press, October 26, 2011] The biggest help that Denis gave me was not to help me. He really does his own thing and he's really protective of his own universe, in a good way. He never went into my area... Doing a science fiction film... is not something that Denis did, so it's something very personal. When you're facing an investor or the institutions or a distributor, it's you yourself with your own ideas and your own project. Even if somebody in your family is successful, it doesn't change anything. On the contrary, I suppose people expect more of you in certain ways. Certainly as a child, probably he had an unconscious positive effect in the sense that (I saw) it was possible to do. To see somebody older than you in your own family that does that is already a pretty powerful influence.
- [at TED2013] When you don't have money, you must take time. And it took me seven years to make Mars and April (2012).
- [on Mars and April (2012)] That I was able to create a cohesive world and tell a poetic story using sci-fi, without any violence. That is a new idea, and I'm proud of that. It isn't a perfect movie, which is the curse of a first film. Coppola [Francis Ford Coppola] said in a workshop I saw that "What people hate you for, is what they will praise you for in 20 years. It's your voice, it makes you unique. So if you get depressed about it, you lose an opportunity to grow." [2016]
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