Jean-Daniel Lafond
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fr:Jean-Daniel Lafond His Excellency Jean-Daniel Lafond, CC (b. 1944) is a French-born Canadian filmmaker, and the husband to Governor General Michaëlle Jean, making him the Viceregal Consort of Canada. He is entitled to be styled His Excellency while his wife is in office.
Lafond was born in France during the liberation of Paris. He subsequently taught philosophy from 1966-1971 "while pursuing research in audio-visual training and communications". In 1974 Lafond left France for Quebec and became a Canadian citizen in 1984. After teaching at the Université de Montréal he left the university to focus on film-making, radio and writing. He has written and directed several documentaries, including Les traces du rêve (1986), La manière Nègre (1991), Tropic North (1994), La liberté en colère (1994), Haiti in All Our Dreams (1995), Last Call for Cuba (1999), The Barbarian Files (1999) and Salam Iran, a Persian Letter (2002), which received the Gémeaux Award for Best Documentary, and Le Cabinet du Docteur Ferron (2003), about writer Jacques Ferron, a notorious and respected Quebec sovereignist and American Fugitive: The Truth about Hassan (2006).
Many of his films examine the process of democratic change in the perspective of hardline Quebec separatists, and take a negative view towards violence and state oppression.
He has also developed an original body of work for radio in Canada (La Première Chaîne) and France (France-Culture), and has published several books with Éditions de l'Hexagone.
He was awarded the Prix Lumières (1999) and he is co-founder of the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal (Documentary Film Festival of Montréal).
Lafond has two daughters Estelle and Élise from a previous marriage and two grandchildren.
[edit] Controversy
When in 2005 his wife was nominated by Prime Minister Paul Martin as the next governor-general, controversy arose when his past resurfaced. While the personality of Michaëlle Jean was mostly accepted throughout Canada, Lafond himself had early on been suspected of being a Quebec separatist because of some of his movies. When an article in a sovereignist journal made its way to the press, alleging that Lafond had befriended a former FLQ (militant Quebec-separatist organization) member who had built for him a cache "to hide weapons" in his library, protest became louder, and many journalists and politicians accused the prime minister of having done too little research on Lafond's background. Later in August, his wife reacted to this in a formal letter announcing she and her husband "had never adhered to a political party or to the sovereignist ideology".
Confusion continues to surround his loyalties. In his book, La manière nègre (The Black Way), he wrote, "So, a sovereign Quebec? An independent Quebec? Yes, and I applaud with both hands and I promise to be at all the St. Jean [Baptiste] parades." However, in October 2005, in an interview with Radio-Canada he said, "I never believed that I could become a separatist. I have a great deal of difficulty with nationalism in general." He also called members of the sovereignist movement who had called him a traitor, terrorists. At the same time he affirmed that he was a Quebecois before a Canadian. He believes that he has always fought for the "cultural independence" of Quebec, but nothing further.<ref name=GlobeAndMail051027> Jean's husband blasts separatists, Globe and Mail, October 27 2005</ref>
Lafond's 2006 film "American Fugitive: The Truth About Hassan", a documentary about an American political activist, alleged to have assassinated an Iranian diplomat in 1980, who appeared, unexpectedly, in the 2001 film Kandahar, also stirred controversy. The National Post asserted that the film was too sympathetic to David Belfield, the activist.<ref name=InformAction> American Fugitive:The Truth About Hassan, InformAction</ref><ref name=Cbc060426> Lafond's new film hits hot buttons, CBC, April 26 2006</ref><ref name=NatPost060502> Airbrushing a killer, National Post, May 2 2006</ref>
[edit] References
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| Preceded by: John Ralston Saul | Viceregal Consort of Canada 2005–present | Succeeded by: incumbent |
