François.e: How Morissette Built a Film About Trans Lives Without Flinching

When Louis Morissette pitched the idea for François.e to his longtime writing partner Jean-François Léger, Léger's first response was "Are you crazy?"

The project had every reason to invite backlash from all sides: the film centers on François, a bitter, aging white male screenwriter who cynically checks the "transgender" box on a funding application, betting it will improve his odds. When his scheme works and he lands financing, François finds himself forced to actually become Françoise and pretend he's a trans woman in transition. The consequences spiral far beyond what he anticipated.

But Morissette and Léger knew they couldn't write the script without involving someone with lived trans experience. They reached out to trans writer Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, author of La fille d'elle-même and La fille de la foudre. Boulianne-Tremblay was initially hesitant. "Louis Morissette being a very well-known media figure, I had small reservations. Our narratives have been used against us, without us, throughout cinema and television history," she said. "But I wanted to give people a chance and not assume bad intent. When we met, I understood that Louis wanted to act as an ally to trans and queer communities and contribute to extinguishing some of the fire of hate."

The three collaborators demanded rigour: the script captures the daily microaggressions trans people face alongside more nuanced versions of trans reality — without collapsing into heavy-handed didacticism or losing the self-deprecating humour that threads through the story. "We could have gone into really heavy drama, but we wanted above all to reach the most people by telling the story of two humans learning from each other," Boulianne-Tremblay explained. "Joy is important in this era when they want us to disappear. It's what keeps me alive as a screenwriter and as a human. I didn't want characters defined by their trans identity either. They're on equal footing with other characters, they can make fun of themselves, because they've learned to embrace all facets of their identity."

Working alongside Léger, Boulianne-Tremblay leaned into the architecture of romantic comedy — its tropes and antagonists — while insisting the characters never become punchlines.