Sophie Deraspe

In 2019 she wrote, directed and shot Antigone, inspired by the 2008 death of Fredy Villanueva in Montreal and loosely adapting the play by Sophocles, saying the story of a women who defies the law for something greater resonated with her, and she wished to update it. The film, starring Nahéma Ricci, premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and won the festival's award for Best Canadian Film. Antigone is chosen to represent Canada in the 2019 Oscars race.

Canadian filmmaker, musician and composer Kaveh Nabatian assembles six directors beside himself for the multidisciplinary omnibus project The Seven Last Words. Besides himself and Sophie Deraspe are Ariane Lorrain, Sophie Goyette, Juan Andres Arango, Karl Lemieux, and Caroline Monnet who are joined by the British Callino String Quartet. The films were shot in Iran, Haiti, Colombia, Nunavut and Québec in 35mm, 16mm and HD while Marc Boucrot (of Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void and Love) was the film's editor.

She is known for her 2015 documentary The Amina Profile, an exploration of the Amina Abdallah Arraf al Omari hoax of 2011.

2015 was particularly productive for Sophie Deraspe, who completed two features that year.

The Wolves, which was distributed by Les Films Séville International, was shown at the Whistler Film Festival, where the jury honored the performance by Louise Portal with a Special Mention. The Wolves was also chosen as the opening night film of the 2015 Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, before going on to a theatrical release in Quebec and screenings at numerous international film festivals. At the Torino Film Festival in 2015, the Fipresci jury named it Best Film.

A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile (its US title) is the director's first feature-length documentary. After drawing a great deal of buzz at its world premiere in Official competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, the film continued its trajectory at numerous festivals around the world. IFC picked up the US rights for distribution theatrically and on their digital platform docclub.com [archive].

A filmic investigation of a mysterious painter who has gone missing, the film screened at the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and in some twenty national and international festivals. At home, it was the opening night film at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Québec city – and later at the Quebec Film Week in San Francisco. The film received national distribution in Canada and screened theatrically in New York in 2007.

According to the eminent critic Marcel Jean (now director of the Cinémathèque québécoise) in the magazine 24 images (no 129): “The screenwriter, editor, camerawoman and actress of Missing Victor Pellerin, Sophie Deraspe plunges headlong in this unclassifiable debut feature film whose point of view – of significant resonance – essentially poses the question of appearances: it presents the world as a vast hoax in which Victor Pellerin's project can be viewed as scandalous in that it lifts the curtain on a corner of this vast fraud. The result is promising, filmmakers who, from their very first film, demonstrate both real ambition and a capacity to make us smile being few and far between.”

From the start, critics raved: “A must-see” (Guillaume Fournier, Voir); “Unflinching, the beauty here is stripped naked and true. Superb acting and cinematography” (John Griffin, The Montreal Gazette). The film was featured on the cover of Ciné-Bulles magazine (winter 2010).

Vital Signs was number four on Ciné-Bulles magazine's list of best films of 2010.

In 2009 Sophie Deraspe's second feature, Vital Signs, premiered in competition at the Festival of New Cinema (Montreal). It took the prize for Best New Canadian Film at the Whistler Film Festival (Canada), where the film's star, Marie-Hélène Bellavance, was named Best Actress for her widely praised debut performance.

She wrote and directed the narrative feature films Missing Victor Pellerin (Rechercher Victor Pellerin) in 2006, Vital Signs (Les Signes vitaux) in 2009, The Wolves (Les Loups) in 2015, (FIPRESCI award in Torino).

In 2006 Sophie Deraspe finished her first independent feature, the confounding Missing Victor Pellerin, which was awarded a Special Jury Mention (International competition) at the Montreal Festival of New Cinema.

In February 2006, the film screened in competition at the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam, competing for a Tiger Award.

In 2001 her documentary short film Moi, la mer, elle est belle was selected for Official competition at the Festival du film francophone de Namur (Belgium). Saute la coche, her fiction short, screened at festivals around the world, winning two prizes.

After studying visual arts in Austria, Sophie Deraspe majored in French literature and then film studies at the Université de Montréal from 1995 to 1998. After graduating with a B.A., she worked as a trainee in the directing department on such seminal Quebec feature films as Philippe Falardeau's debut feature La moitié gauche du Frigo [The Left-Hand Side of the Fridge, 2000] and André Turpin's Le crabe dans la tête [Soft-Shell Man, 2001], and served as DOP on numerous film and television productions. In 2001 she took a seat on the board of directors of Vidéographe, a Montreal-based artist-run center, serving as chairperson from 2007–2008.

Sophie Deraspe (born October 27, 1973) is a Canadian director, director of photography, and producer. She is considered one of the leading figures of new Quebec cinema. Her work, which often deals with contemporary art, constantly questions limits, particularly those related to representation, as well as the limits of “reality” and fiction.