The second feature film by Quebec filmmaker Katherine Jerkovic (Les routes in February), Le coyote, tells the story of Camilo (Jorge Martinez, Colorado), a Montrealer in his fifties of Mexican origin who wants to find work as a chef after having had to close his restaurant, Le coyote, a decade earlier.
Camilo, a lonely bachelor, does housework at night and sends resumes during the day, which often go unanswered. We gradually guess the reasons for his setbacks when his drug addict daughter, Tania (Eva Avila), with whom he has broken ties, introduces him to his grandson, whom he did not know existed. Tania would like to entrust it to him while she begins a new rehab. However, Camilo receives at the same time an interesting proposal from a restaurateur he knows in La Malbaie.
A reflection on life, with all its unforeseen events, its obstacles, and the choices that open up new trajectories, The Coyote is a sensitive, poetic and poignant portrait of characters and realities that we still see too little in our cinema.
Katherine Jerkovic’s sober and naturalistic production, which favors the sequence shot, is without artifice or stylistic effects, consistent with its story and the environment it depicts. His scenario, without fuss, is made of silences, ellipsis and unsaid.
Jorge Martinez Colorado, revealed in the series Le temps des raspberries, by Philippe Falardeau, aptly embodies the character of Camilo, an immigrant torn between his professional future and his new responsibilities as a grandfather. The comedian won Best Actor at the most recent Whistler Film Festival, where The Coyote won Best Canadian Film.
