Director Biography – Nathalie Therriault (THE TAILOR)

A queer woman in her 50s, Nathalie Therriault (she/her) is a Vancouver-based emerging filmmaker. Nathalie began her artistic pursuits at 8 years old as an actor and trained with numerous acting coaches from Vancouver to Los Angeles. Her passion for craft and the examination of truth made for a natural progression to teaching. She has been teaching acting in Vancouver for over 9 years and has mentored many talented artists. In the last few years, Nathalie enrolled in film studies at Langara College where she discovered her love of writing and storytelling. She hopes her films give hope and a voice to the outcasts who feel unseen, unheard and unloved. She firmly believes it is never too late to take a chance. The Tailor marks her debut as a writer/director.

Director Statement

The seed for this project was planted several years ago when a friend told me about a strange encounter they’d had with an elderly tailor. The tailor, who was in his 90s, had recently died, and my friend believed they had been his last customer. The strange part was that the tailor had spent time pinning and measuring this person’s jacket, only to say in the end that it was not worth it to alter. This story affected me deeply. I kept wondering why the tailor would take the time to pin the jacket and then decide not to alter it? Eventually, I imagined that this older man still craved the intimacy of human touch, and his work was the one place where he could still get that. We live in such an alienated, youth-oriented culture that we have forgotten the value of our elders. Many of us, through death or dysfunction or distance, have lost access to our own parents and grandparents. We turn to friends and the internet for guidance when nearby, in an old age home, an elderly person brimming with life stories is left abandoned and alone. This story takes us on a journey through self-acceptance by way of human connection, revelation and the fateful exchange between two vulnerable strangers who take a leap of faith and open their hearts to one another.