Any place where you have to deal with many social actors like a school - you have the parents, the Ministry of Education, the school board, and the teachers - you need all kinds of sets and rules. You're trying to foresee anything that can happen and everything becomes really rigid. They don't want to talk about death because they don't want to overwhelm the children, but that has already happened, so you're not going to overwhelm them more.

In the province of Quebec where I come from, we speak French and the only cosmopolitan city is Montreal. Every time we tackle the subject of immigration and racial tension, it's an issue that concerns Montreal. Also, in Quebec, we have this added issue that we want people to speak French, because French is always on the verge of disappearing to some extent. I work, play and do everything in French.

I will see 100 or 200 and I will take my time with them and I audition them for the two main roles. If I like what I see, but they're not exactly right for the role, I'll think well I have this other role that might work for them. Sometimes I will write a role for them because I want to work with them because they're so good.

If youre writing a screenplay from scratch, it involves a lot of creation.

I think it's the same thing for a country. We are lucky then that we can get some financing from the government, because it means when I get the money, when I get the grant to do the film, of course it's based on the script, but I have total artistic control and I can do personal stuff.

The notion, the invention of a country, is fairly new in the history of mankind. We tend to forget that. We want to protect our country. The country is something that's fairly new. It's 250 years old, maybe 300 years old, so it's bound to change and evolve also. Migration is part of that.

It's the same challenge as with any other character, adults or not. You want to take time with the kids. You want to tell them in the audition that they have time to exchange ideas. I'm there. It's not someone else who does the audition, but I don't want to audition a thousand children.