[1] The versatile André Mélançon – director, writer and actor – set out to become a youth guidance counsellor before he veered into film.

His background in psychology and education helped orient his filmmaking toward films about, with, and for children.

He turned to acting and won a Canadian Film Award for his performance in Bound for Glory (Partis pour la gloire).

In the 1980s he directed The Dog Who Stopped the War, which won the Golden Reel Award, and Bach et bottine, and wrote, with Jacques Bobet, Tadpole and the Whale also a Golden Reel Award winner.

[2] In 2013 he was awarded the National Order of Quebec[2] and in 2015 he received the Lifetime Achievement Jutra-Award.