In the third episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season, we interview Philippe Falardeau about his four-part documentary series, Lac-Mégantic: This is Not An Accident, and reinventing the true crime doc.
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On episode 3 of the creative nonfiction podcast season, Philippe Falardeau discusses Lac-Mégantic: This is Not An Accident is a four-part documentary series about the catastrophic 2013 train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, its inevitability, the aftermath, and the government failure to change safety requirements to avoid another “accident” in future. Lac-Mégantic had its world premiere at the HotDocs Film Festival where all four episodes were screened back-to-back.
The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster was the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history (47 people died) and the deadliest involving a non-passenger train. The documentary Lac-Mégantic not only chronicles the disaster and its devastating effects on the town Lac-Mégantic, but also how blame was handled and how similar disasters continue to happen.
The series reclaims the history of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster by showing how systemic problems lead to a disaster that has been blamed on individuals. The series also reveals how appropriate safety measures have not been taken in the intervening years to prevent a similar disaster from happening (and other, smaller disasters have indeed continued to happen).
At the beginning of the episode, Alex Heeney introduces the series Lac-Mégantic, and why she thinks it’s worthy of discussion. Next, we play your Alex’s interview with Falardeau about the film. Finally, we wrap up with how the film fits into the framework for creative nonfiction that we at Seventh Row created in our ebook Subjective realities, and offer some suggestions for what to watch and listen to next.
Listen to the whole Creative Nonfiction season
In this 5-episode podcast season, Alex Heeney interviews four creative nonfiction filmmakers about their latest films and how they are pushing the boundaries of what documentary and nonfiction film can be.
Listen to all the episodes to discover how filmmakers are pushing the bounds of documentary cinema in 2023.
Show Notes for Creative Nonfiction Podcast Season Ep. 3: An interview with Philippe Falardeau on Lac-Mégantic: This is Not an Accident
- Watch our masterclass with Philippe Falardeau and Mina Shum
- Read our interview with Philippe Falardeau on My Internship in Canada
- Watch our masterclass on Creative Nonfiction with Carol Nguyen and Penny Lane
- Get your copy of the ebook Subjective Realities
- Get your copy of the ebook In their own words: Documentary Masters vol. 1
- Discover more Seventh Row writing on creative nonfiction film
- Become a member to listen to our entire archive of podcasts, including our past episodes in which we discuss creative nonfiction films.
Get our ebooks on documentary filmmaking and creative nonfiction film
Dive deep into the work of Frederick Wiseman and Gianfranco Rosi and read our initial interview with Penny Lane on creative nonfiction by getting Documentary Masters in a bundle with Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film.
Download a FREE excerpt from Subjective Realities here.
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The Seventh Row Podcast spotlights under-the-radar, female-directed, and foreign films. All of our episodes are carefully curated. Indeed, we only discuss films we think are really worth your time and deserve in-depth critical analysis.
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Related Episodes to the podcast interview with Philippe Falardeau on the documentary Lac-Mégantic: This Is Not an Accident
- Bonus Episode 25 (Members only): This is Going to Hurt and physician mental health: In this episode, we discuss the systemic issues in British public healthcare and how the best TV show of 2022 revealed these issues.
- Ep. 41 (Members Only): In the Loop and My Internship in Canada: Political satires: In this episode, we discuss Philippe Falardeau’s political satire My Internship in Canada, perhaps the first political satire about Canada and made in Canada, and compare it to the British-American political satire In the Loop. In our interview with Philippe Falardeau on today’s podcast, Falardeau talks about how his experience in fiction helped him to make a doc.
Related Episodes on creative nonfiction film
- Ep. 99: Creative Nonfiction with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen
- Sundance 2023 Ep. 7: Best of the fest + documentaries Fantastic Machine, Is There Anybody Out There, and more
- Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative Nonfiction
- Ep. 67: Frederick Wiseman’s Ex Libris and City Hall
- Ep. 95: No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed: Reclaiming history in documentary
Listen to all the related episodes. Become a member.
All of our episodes that are more than six months old are only available to members. Additionally, we have many bonus episodes and in-between season episodes which are also only available to members.
For exclusive access to all of our episodes:
Credits
Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.
This episode was edited, produced, and recorded by Alex Heeney.
Catch up with the rest of the season
Find out more about the season
Listen to Ep. 1: An introduction to creative nonfiction
Listen to Ep. 2: Sophie Fiennes on Four Quartets and documenting theatre on screen
Episode transcript
The transcript for the free excerpt of this episode was AI-generated by Otter.ai.
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