Louise Archambault’s Familia – A Look Back
by Ralph Lucas – Publisher
(July 20, 2018 – Toronto, ON) One day in February of 2019, Northernstars will celebrate its 20th year online. Since we update this website daily, that means when we hit that auspicious occasion we will have published 7300 issues, not counting leap years. One of the highlights of what we have accomplished was buying the digital archives of Take One Magazine in 2007. It had ceased publication in 2005 after a stellar run as the go-to source for information about Canadian film. Its founder and publisher became a contributing editor, a relationship that continues to this day, although we wish his contributions would come more frequently.
Since that acquisition we have been slowly adapting some of the best content from the magazine to use here on Northernstars. Over the coming weeks we’re going to revisit some of those articles, profiles, reviews and interviews that we have previously published. We’re also going to publish content from Take One that we have not yet used.
Our founding philosophy has always been about knowledge. While getting bums in seats is the ultimate goal of any filmmaker and 
distributor, how they get there becomes a crucial part of the process. In our earliest days we were able to determine that the first question that usually gets asked after someone says, “Want to go see Title of Film?” is “Who’s in it?” A star system is based on name recognition. We used to say that Northernstars was building a Canadian star system…one page at a time. Almost 20 years later we’re still doing that.
Over the years Northernstars has supported a number of film festivals by buying advertising space in their programs. This includes the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which will reveal the first portion of its 2018 lineup on Tuesday of next week, July 24.
With that in mind we decided our first “Look Back” would highlight an interview with Québec director Louise Archambault. Interviewed by Wyndham Wise, her film, Familia, screened at the 2005 edition of TIFF.
Ralph Lucas is the founder and publisher of Northernstars.ca. He began writing about film and reviewing movies while in radio in Montreal in the mid-1970s.
