Ça me fuck

When Telefilm Canada refused to finance controversial filmmaker Pierre Falardeau's proposal for a film about the 1838 rebellion of the Patriotes for a third time last December, Falardeau decided to raise the funds himself. Last Friday, Falardeau and the other members of the newly formed Comité du 15 février 1839 (named to commemorate the day de Lorimier was hanged) held their first fundraiser: a large-scale concert at the Spectrum.

The event was a who's-who of high-calibre sovereignist supporters in the music industry, including Dan Bigras, Geneviève Lenoir, Éric Lapointe and the grand old man himself, Gilles Vigneault.

Falardeau maintains that Telefilm's rejection is a form of political censorship, though he admits that his perspective is undermined by the fact that director Michel Brault recently secured federal funding for a script with similar themes. "Ça me fuck!" is how Falardeau eloquently put it.

Despite his reputation for outspokenness, Falardeau took the high road during his address to the crowd, quoting exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The evening's only glitch came when Dan Bigras admitted that one of his band members didn't show up because he's a federalist. Robert Wilson-Smith