Claude Jutra was a Canadian actor, film director, and screenwriter.
12 Facts About Claude Jutra
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The Prix Jutra, and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Claude Jutra Award, were named in his honour because of his importance in Quebec cinema history.
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Claude Jutra's father, Albert Jutras, was a radiologist and a director of the College des medecins du Quebec.
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Claude Jutra made the short films Dement du lac Jean-Jeunes and Perpetual Movement before graduating from the Universite de Montreal with a degree in medicine, but turned to filmmaking instead of medical practice after completing his degree.
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Claude Jutra studied theatre in Montreal and wrote his first original Quebec television play in 1953, and a television series, Images en boite, in 1954.
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Claude Jutra went to work at the National Film Board of Canada in 1956 where he trained in all facets of filmmaking, although his first film for the NFB, Trio-Brio, was permanently lost when the organization moved its head office from Ottawa to Montreal.
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Claude Jutra was offered the Order of Canada in 1972 but declined because he was a Quebec separatist.
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Claude Jutra was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in the early 1980s.
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Claude Jutra's body was found in the St Lawrence River in April 1987, with a note in his pocket reading "Je m'appelle Claude Jutra" ; an autopsy later confirmed drowning as his cause of death.
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In 2016,30 years after Jutra's death, journalist Yves Lever wrote in the book Claude Jutra, biographie and claimed that Jutra was a pederast.
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Claude Jutra mandated the Commission de toponymie, a sub-agency of Office quebecois de la langue francaise which reports to the Minister of Culture, to assemble a list of all streets and public places in the province bearing the name Jutra.
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Claude Jutra made his debut as a director with Le dement du lac Jean-Jeunes - it explored themes that remained throughout his work, a nostalgia for childhood, madness, and troubled waters.