Martin Villeneuve (born March 13, 1978) is a Montreal-based screenwriter, producer, director and art director.

Biography

TED2013 speaker Martin Villeneuve studied film at Concordia University and graphic design at Université du Québec à Montréal. In 2002, he received a grant from the happening local advertising agency Sid Lee for the quality of his portfolio. In the years that followed, he worked as an artistic director with this agency, especially for Cirque du Soleil. In this capacity, he helped create award-winning advertising campaigns for shows like Zumanity, KÀ and Corteo. He also directed the TV spots for the Cirque du Soleil shows DELIRIUM and Saltimbanco, as well as the website for the MGM Mirage’s CityCenter real-estate project in Las Vegas. As an author, Martin Villeneuve has written and created the comic book La voix du tonnerre (Les 400 coups, 2004), as well as the two graphic novels Mars et Avril (Sid Lee & la Pastèque, 2002-2006), which received enthusiastic acclaim and won many awards. In 2012, he completed his first feature film as writer-director-producer, Mars et Avril, based on the graphic novels of the same name. This science fiction film, starring Jacques Languirand, Caroline Dhavernas, Paul Ahmarani and Robert Lepage, premiered at the 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Czech Republic. Mars et Avril was released in Canada in Fall 2012 and continues its tour of international festivals. Martin Villeneuve was nominated for best adapted screenplay at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards for Mars et Avril.

Martin Villeneuve has recently written and directed for Montreal's Moment Factory a light and sound show called AC Dreamin' projected on the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall. In addition, he is currently working with European comic book masters Benoît Sokal and François Schuiten on the script of Aquarica, an animated fantasy feature film.


TED Talk
On February 27, 2013, Martin Villeneuve gave a TED Talk about Mars et Avril at TED2013, thereby becoming the very first French Canadian speaker invited to this prestigious event that took place in Long Beach, California. Prior to his talk, the opening sequence of the film was shown, as well as a three minutes overview of the steps leading from the green screen to the final images. Martin Villeneuve's talk, “How I made an impossible film,” was released on TED.com on June 7, 2013, and a month later was added to TED's movie magic list, featuring famed directors such as James Cameron and J.J. Abrams. Since then, Mars et Avril is being referred to as the “Impossible Film”, has been sold to the U.S. and is now available on GaiamTV.