by Julie Roy

Mariloup Wolfe topped off last year by winning the grand prize in a two-minute film competition. For Wolfe, 24, who is in the last stages of Film Studies, it meant an entrée into the world of film production.

Fly Fly tells the story of “a young man in his mid-twenties who’s hoping to find love through flies.” It’s hard to say much more without spoiling the punchline, but rest assured that the actors are . . . flies.

“That was complicated!,” laughed Wolfe. “We couldn’t buy them anywhere, so we grew them in a vivarium. The day of the shoot, they all escaped and we had to trap new ones with cat food and a net!”

The only rule was that the movie should not exceed 120 seconds. In a burst of creativity, she wrapped the whole production of Fly Fly in only 10 days. For a few months, people could go on Cinélande’s web site and vote for their favourite 120-second film.

“I got around 1,300 votes for Fly Fly, which made me really proud,” she said. Her awards — tops in the fiction category and the grand prize — were announced in January. They earned her $5,000 in cash and an internship at Cinélande, the production house that sponsored the competition.

“We opened at the Rouyn-Noranda Film Festival, which has international standing, alongside Gérard Depardieu’s movie Vidocq,” said a proud Wolfe. Many festivals followed, and she has even received warm congratulations from the Quebec culture minister.

Wolfe is no stranger to the camera. She has acted in some major Quebec productions, such as 2 Frères, TAG and the new teenage sitcom on Télé-Québec, Ramdam, where, at 24, she plays Mariane L’Espérance, a hip teenager 10 years her junior. “I am still easily cast in teenager roles because I look a lot younger than my age,” she explained.

When asked if she could choose between being in front or behind the camera, Wolfe admitted she would like to keep living in both worlds. “Those two careers can be so ephemeral, I want to take all I can and see what I learn from it.” That’s also why she deeply admires one of her Concordia teachers, Micheline Lanctôt, who acts, directs and teaches. (Lanctôt can be seen Monday nights in the new Radio-Canada political satire Bunker: Le Cirque.)

Cinélande has offered Wolfe the opportunity to work on her demo tape for a few months, and she will sit in on several projects throughout the production process, from brainstorming to post-production. “This is an incredible chance for me to learn more about film production, which I am so passionate about!”

Among the other projects, she is working on a movie directed by Marcel Simard (who did the movie Love-moi), with street kids doing some of the writing. She stars in Radio-Canada’s Freddy, Télé-Québec’s Jean Duceppe and appears in one episode of Radio-Canada’s Le Plateau. She has her own production company, Les Productions du Grand Méchant Loup, and is working on her first music video as a director, with singer Luc Cousineau.