2 Seconds

Last updated
2 Seconds
French 2 Secondes
Directed by Manon Briand
Written byManon Briand
Produced by Roger Frappier
Starring
Cinematography Louise Archambault
Pierre Crépô
James Gray
Edited by Richard Comeau
Music byDominique Grand
Sylvain-Charles Grand
Production
company
Max Films Productions
Release date
  • September 12, 1998 (1998-09-12)(Canada)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguagesEnglish and French interchangeably

2 Seconds (French : 2 secondes) is a 1998 Canadian drama film. This film premiered in 1999 at the Sundance Film Festival. [1] Written and directed by Manon Briand, 2 Seconds stars Charlotte Laurier as Laurie, a bisexual woman who takes a job as a bike courier in Montreal after being fired from her previous job as a professional downhill racer. [2] Laurie is forcefully retired as a downhill racer when her concerns about her signs of aging cause her to lose her last race by 2 seconds (hence the name of the movie). Laurie and the one bike she was allowed to keep then move in with her geeky, physics-loving brother who is trying very hard to find a girlfriend. While putting her bike together, Laurie discovers that she is missing a gear on her bicyclette so she makes do with what she has. Because of this, she breaks the chain on her bike one day, leading to her meeting with her soon-to-be best friend Lorenzo. Lorenzo is an ex Italian professional racer who currently works as a bike mechanic in his own bike shop. offered her a job at the bicycle company, but one of her co workers, Willie, tries to make her life miserable. After talking to Lorenzo, Laurie figures out what she needs to do to help herself and try to resolve things. [3]

Contents

Cast

Reception

Critical reception

Brendan Kelly of Variety praised the film, saying "there is no shortage of nifty visual flourishes. . .Soundtrack is an appropriately cool urban mix of jazz and modern-rock sounds." [4] The Melbourne International Film Festival called it "An understated film with an extraordinarily simple premise" [5]

Awards

YearAwardCategoryRecipientsResults
1998 Montreal World Film Festival [6] Best Canadian FilmManon BriandWon
Best DirectorManon BriandWon
Montréal award of the best First Fiction FilmManon BriandWon
Grand Prix des AmeriquesManon BriandNominated
FedEx Award of the best Canadian Film2 secondes (Manon Briand)Won
1998Namur International Festival of French-Speaking Film [7] Best First ScreenplayManon BriandWon
1999 1st Jutra Awards Best Picture Roger FrappierNominated
Best Director Manon Briand Nominated
Best Actor Dino Tavarone Nominated
Best Actress Charlotte Laurier Nominated
Best Screenplay Manon BriandNominated
Best Sound Yvon Benoît, Martin Pinsonnault, Hans Peter Strobl, Louis HoneNominated
Best Editing Richard Comeau Nominated

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missy Giove</span> American mountain biker

Melissa 'The Missile' Giove is an American professional downhill mountain biker. Throughout her career she won 14 NORBA downhill titles and 11 world cups. Giove's other accomplishments include three overall NORBA downhill crowns, two World Cup overalls, and the 1994 World Championship title.

<i>Biker Boyz</i> 2003 American film

Biker Boyz is a 2003 American sports action drama film, directed by Reggie Rock Bythewood and written by Bythewood and Craig Fernandez, based on the 2000 New Times LA article of the same name by Michael Gougis. The film is about a group of underground motorcycle drag racers, and the intense rivalry between a legendary motorcyclist and a young racing prodigy who has formed his own biker club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downhill mountain biking</span> Style of mountain biking

Downhill mountain biking (DH) is a style of mountain biking practiced on steep, rough terrain that often features jumps, drops, rock gardens and other obstacles. Jumps can be up to and including 12 meters, and drops can be greater than 3 meters.

Michelle Dumaresq is a Canadian professional downhill mountain bike competitor and trans woman. She competes with other professional female downhill mountain bike racers. She entered the sport in 2001, six years after completing gender reassignment surgery, when she was discovered riding on Vancouver's North Shore by several top women mountain bikers. Dumaresq is open about gender identity.

<i>Downhill Racer</i> 1969 film by Michael Ritchie

Downhill Racer is a 1969 American sports drama film starring Robert Redford, Gene Hackman and Camilla Sparv, and was the directorial debut of Michael Ritchie. Written by James Salter, based on the 1963 novel The Downhill Racers by Oakley Hall, the film is about a talented downhill skier who joins the United States Ski Team in Europe to compete in international skiing competitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathy Kreiner</span> Canadian alpine skier

Katharine Kreiner-Phillips is a former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist from Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leigh Donovan</span> American cyclist

Leigh Donovan is an American former professional downhill mountain bike and BMX racer and current cycling ambassador and mountain bike skills instructor and based out of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Melissa Buhl is an American former professional downhill and mountain-cross racer who has been racing as pro since 1998. She was the 2005 USAC National Pro Downhill Champion and 2002 USAC National Pro Mountain Cross Champion, and 2008 4-X World Champion, NMBS DH Champion, NMBS 4-X Champion. Buhl started racing for KHS Factory Racing in 2001 and retired in 2012.

<i>Nitro</i> (film) 2007 Canadian film

Nitro is a Canadian action drama film, directed by Alain DesRochers which was released in 2007. The film stars Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge as Max, a former drag racer who is forced to return to his criminal past when his girlfriend requires a heart transplant. The film also stars Lucie Laurier as Morgane, a female drag racer who assists Max in his quest to locate a suitable organ for his girlfriend's surgery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Hill (cyclist)</span> Australian professional mountain biker

Sam Hill, is an Australian professional enduro mountain biker and former professional downhill racer. He was two time consecutive UCI World Downhill Champion during years 2006–2007 for Iron Horse racing team. He won the 2010 world championships in Mont Saint Anne, riding for the Monster Energy Specialized team on a Specialized Demo 8 II. He also won the 2007 and 2009 UCI Elite Men's Downhill World Cup (Overall). In December 2012 it was announced that Hill had signed for the Chain Reaction Cycles/Nukeproof team. As of 2016, Hill has switched to racing enduro and won the 2017 Enduro World Series overall title. In the same year he raced the Downhill World Championships in Cairns, Australia on his enduro bike where he finished sixth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tara Llanes</span> American-Canadian bicycle motocross rider and wheelchair basketball player (born 1976)

Tara Janelle Llanes is a Bicycle Motocross (BMX) racer and a wheelchair basketball player whose prime competitive years were from 1990 to 1993. She became a champion Mountain Bike (MTB) racer. She later played wheelchair tennis and wheelchair basketball for Canada. Her surname is pronounced "Yaw-ness" but for obvious reasons it is often mispronounced "lanes" as in the type of division of a pathway. Llanes is part of the LGBTQ+ community.

<i>Polytechnique</i> (film) 2009 film by Denis Villeneuve

Polytechnique is a 2009 Canadian drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Villeneuve and Jacques Davidts. Starring Maxim Gaudette, Sebastien Huberdeau, and Karine Vanasse, the film is based on the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre and re-enacts the events of the incident through the eyes of two students who witness a gunman (Gaudette) murder fourteen young women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gina Austin</span> Soap opera character

Gina Palmer is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Home and Away, played by Sonia Todd. The character debuted on-screen during the episode broadcast on 26 January 2009. Gina is the older sister of Tony Holden and the mother to three sons; Hugo, Brendan and Xavier Austin. The character was killed off on 18 April 2013, following Todd's decision to leave.

<i>Tiny Furniture</i> 2010 American film

Tiny Furniture is a 2010 American comedy-drama film written, directed by, and starring Lena Dunham. The film premiered at South by Southwest, where it won the award for Best Narrative Feature, screened at such festivals as Maryland Film Festival, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 12, 2010. Dunham plays Aura, an aimless, jilted film school graduate who returns home on what she hopes is a temporary basis. Dunham's mother, artist Laurie Simmons, plays Aura's mother, while her real sibling, Cyrus Grace Dunham, plays Aura's on-screen sister. The actors Jemima Kirke and Alex Karpovsky would also appear in Dunham's television series Girls.

Anne Trister is a 1986 Canadian drama film directed by Léa Pool. It was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.

Charlotte Laurier is a Canadian film and television actress. First prominent as a child actress in the 1980s, she is a two-time Genie Award nominee for Best Actress, in 1981 for Good Riddance and in 1986 for The Dame in Colour .

Montreal Stories, also titled Montreal Sextet in some releases, is a Canadian drama film, released in 1991 as an homage to the city of Montreal, Quebec on the occasion of its 350th anniversary. Written and directed by Denys Arcand, Michel Brault, Atom Egoyan, Jacques Leduc, Léa Pool and Patricia Rozema, the film is an anthology of six short films, one by each of the credited directors.

The 1st Jutra Awards were held on March 7, 1999 to honour films made with the participation of the Quebec film industry in 1998. The host of the ceremony was Rémy Girard.

Dino Tavarone is an Italian-Canadian actor most prominent in the Cinema of Quebec. He is most noted for his role as mafia boss Giuseppe Scarfo in the television series Omertà, and his performance in Manon Briand's film 2 Seconds , for which he received a Jutra Award nomination for Best Actor at the 1st Jutra Awards in 1999.

Camille Balanche is a Swiss cyclist. In 2020, she won the women's downhill race at the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships held in Leogang, Austria. She is the first Swiss rider to win a Downhill world title.

References

  1. Briand, M. (2016). 2 Seconds. Retrieved December 01, 2016, from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/2_seconds/
  2. Thomas Waugh, Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. ISBN   9780773530690.
  3. 1 2 2 Seconds. (1990). Retrieved December 1, 2016, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158446/
  4. Kelly, Brendan (1998-09-16). "2 Seconds". Variety. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  5. "MIFF 2018 | Festival Archive 1952-2017". MIFF 2018. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  6. "AWARDS OF THE MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL-1998". Archived from the original on 2018-09-12.
  7. 2 secondes , retrieved 2018-04-03