Charles Binamé

Charles Binamé (born May 25, 1949) is a Quebec director. He was born in Belgium and came to Montreal with his family at a young age. He joined the National Film Board of Canada as an assistant director in 1971, but soon left for the private sector. During the 1970s, he mostly directed documentaries for Quebec television, and in the 1980s he directed over 200 television commercials, including some in England. When he returned to Canada in the early 1990s, he directed two of Quebec's most popular television series of all time, Blanche (the sequel to the series Les Filles de Caleb) and Marguerite Volant. The former won him seven Prix Gémeaux and the FIPA d'Or at Cannes Film Festival for best drama series. Also in the 1990s Binamé wrote and directed a trio of edgy urban dramas – Eldorado, Streetheart (Le Coeur au poing) and Pandora's Beauty (La Beauté de Pandore). His big-budget Séraphin: Heart of Stone (a remake of Un Homme et son péché) was a huge box-office hit in Quebec in 2002, and in 2005 he directed The Rocket, a biography of hockey legend Maurice Richard, which earned him a Genie Award for best director.