Missing Victor Pellerin, a film by Sophie Deraspe

Victor Pellerin: Born in 1960, in Abitibi, Canada, as Luc Gauthier, Victor Pellerin is the son of Maria-Luisa Fernandez, of Portugese origin, and Michel Gauthier, born in Montreal. A mining prospector, the latter brought his family accross the territories of Quebec, South Africa, and Brazil, where Luc Gauthier met Eudore Belzile, a young engineer working for his father. Their brotherly friendship was maintained through many of Luc Gauthiers’ adventures, including those involving him closely with Nicaraguan guerrillas and the exotic plant trade for Europe, as well as during his Canadian period as artist emeritus espousing the name Victor Pellerin. The last known whereabouts of him are marked by his autodafe, committed in Montreal in the winter of 1990. He has left family and friends in mourning as well as sparked a controversy by destroying his entire body of work.
Anne Lebeau: Since 1988, Anne Lebeau has danced for many Montreal choreographers such as Louise Bedard, Sylvain Emard, Alain Francoeur, Paola de Vasconcelos et Jose Navas. In addition, she has worked on a number of different projects with stage director Brigitte Haentjens, weaving links between the world of dance and that of theatre. Anne Lebeau also has participated in a number of different tours in Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan. Likewise, she has taught as a dance teacher for 15 years at the Ateliers de danse moderne de Montréal. Anne Lebeau kept intimate company with Victor Pellerin during the years preceding his disappearance, maintaining with him a tumultuous love affair.
Eudore Belzile: Engineer by trade, and onetime theatre personality, Eudore Belzile has devoted himself mainly to photography in recent years. Born in Quebec, he now lives in Columbia with his only daughter. He first met Victor Pellerin in the 1970’s in Brazil where he was working on a contract for Michel Gauthier, Victor Pellerins’ father, a mining prospector. Eudore Belzile quickly became a friend of the family, bonded with Victor, and remained assiduously close to him in the years that followed. In 2005, Eudore Belzile organized an exposition in memory of the missing artist called Autour de Victor Pellerin which reunited the works of many of his closest friends and colleagues. It was held at the Parisian Laundry & Co gallery in Montreal.
Élisabeth L. Gauthier: Born in Abitibi in 1958, Elizabeth L. Gauthier has been living in Paris for over 20 years. After working at a number of different jobs, she has succeeded in carving out a place for herself as an illustrator. Before going to Brazil with her father, Michel Gauthier, a mining prospector, she lived in Quebec where she was influenced by her brother from an early age to explore art. Represented at one time by a number of galleries in Paris, Elizabeth L. Gauthier exhibited her work for some years before the wild and bohemian lifestyle of her youth caught up with her and put a stop to her career. Since 1990, she has had no news of her missing brother.
Éric Devlin: Montreal gallery owner and geological engineer by trade, Eric Devlin originally worked as a scientific writer before co-founding the arts magazine ETC Montréal, and eventually becoming the president of the Montreal Association of Contemporary Art. In 1988, he opened Trois Points in association with Jocelyne Aumont and Elena Lee, and in 1995, opened his own gallery, Galerie Eric Devlin, the first gallery to exhibit the works of Victor Pellerin, long before the latter embedded himself in the care of Olga Korper in Toronto. Eric Devlin was also the first art collector to procure a Pellerin, which unfortunately suffered the same fate as all of Pellerins’ other works.
Julien Poulin: Born in Montreal in 1946, Julien Poulin in known first and foremost as an actor, although he has also worked as a film director. Long-time associate of Pierre Falardeau, with whom he co-directed his first works, he is primarily known to the larger public as having been the interpreter of the celebrated role of Elvis Gratton. Julien Poulin met Victor Pellerin – then called Luc Gauthier – in Nicaragua in 1979 during the shooting of a political documentary film which was never finished. He is now engaged on the television series Minuit, le soir as the character Gaétan.
Olga Korper: Of Czech origin, Olga Korper has lived in Canada since 1951. After her studies in education as well as at the Ontario College of Fine Arts, she spent several years teaching art before opening her first gallery in Toronto in 1973. The gallery changed name and location to eventually become The Olga Korper Gallery in 1989. A leading gallery in the Canadian art scene, she sits on several administrative councils and hosts diverse conferences on topics such as authors’ rights and art and investment, among others. Olga Korper represented Victor Pellerin during the peak of his career and greatly facilitated the commercial success of his œuvre. She was also inadvertently implicated by false accusations against Victor Pellerin and had to initiate her own investigation to save her tarnished reputation.
Mathieu Beauséjour: A self-taught artist, Mathieu Beausejour has been exhibiting his installation works and art events since the mid-1990’s. His projects Survival Virus de Survie and Internationale Virologie Numismatique, which he describes as ‘semiotic terrorism’, have been presented in Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Serbia. Certain of his works have also been exhibited in museums. A Canada Council for the Arts and Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec grant recipient, he has also benefited from artist residences in Paris and London. Mathieu Beausejour, who frequented the Studio Jan Kilinski and also knew Victor Pellerin, can also be described as a cultural worker, anarch-utopian and ‘zoo-keeper’.
Sylvain Bouthillette: A multi-disciplinary artist born in Montreal in 1963, Sylvain Bouthillette obtained his Masters? degree in Visual Arts from Concordia University. His artistic approach, which seeks to reconcile the sacred and the mundane, expresses itself via different mediums which include painting, photography, and audio installation. He has also remained part of a touring punk rock group, BLISS, over the years. Since 1983, he has had a number of solo shows (at Clint Roenisch in Toronto, AxeNeo7 in Hull, Trois Points, Clark and Art Mûr in Montréal, and L?Œil de Poisson in Quebec, among others) and has participated in group shows in Quebec, Ontario, Europe and New York. His work is represented in several museums and important Canadian collections. His pictorial world is not without an aesthetic relationship with that of Victor Pellerins’, with whom he was acquainted, among others, at the Studio Jan Kilinski.
Jean-Frédéric Messier: Having originally studied science in university, Jean-Frederic Messier went on to become an iconoclastic playwright, theatre director and art co-director as well as the sole founder of the Momentum Theater. He has written and directed many plays such as Le musée des atrocités, Oestrus, Helter Skelter and Cabaret neiges noires. He has also written a number of plays for youth theatre (Un éléphant dans le cœur, Au moment de sa disparition and Wigwam, among others), as well as collaborated on a number of theatrical and operatic productions, here and abroad, with artists such as Michel Nadeau and Robert Lepage. Jean-Frederic Messier has been recognized and honored with a number of prizes, for instance the ‘Masque du meilleur texte original’, in 2003. In addition, he also works as a composer for the group Extasium, as well as for theatre and dance. Having frequented the Studio Jan Kilinski, Jean-Frederic Messier also knew Victor Pellerin, but holds certain reservations regarding his personality.
Alain Lacoursière: ... is a detective and art investigator for the Sûreté du Québec. Specializing in art crimes for 15 years, he holds a Bachelors' degree in Art History, and is also a long-time amateur artist. Alain Lacoursières' art crimes unit is the only one like it in Canada. It has become known internationally and he is considered an expert in the field. He is highly involved in the museum community and very close to the gallery owners and collectors. The case of Luc Gauthier, aka Victor Pellerin, has never been closed.