Yan Giroux spent several years perfecting his poetry before turning to film, producing several student and independent shorts. In 2001, after studying film in France, he founded the production house ALT in conjunction with producer Jérôme Couture. Created to give them some independence, ALT is designed to turn profits that will finance their film projects. In 2005, he produced Little Birds, a videoclip for We are Wolves. The clip was voted best video at the Illinois International Film Festival (U.S.) and Canadian International Annual Film/Video Festival, and was chosen for Vidfest, a travelling festival that visits some of the world’s biggest cities.

The Gazette, Yan’s first production for an advertising agency, earned Québec’s grand prize for advertising in 2007, and took home several other awards for how intelligently it tackled journalism. The same year, after three years of work, he completed his first full-length documentary on Cuban identity, called Cubanos. Selected for several international festivals, the film is now being distributed internationally by DER, with Filmoption International handling distribution in French-speaking territories.

Also in 2007, he produced the short feature Il faut que je parle à mon père, which stands out for its daring, innovative approach to the sequence shot. After it was screened at the Rendez-vous du cinema Québécois, André Habib, critic for the zine Hors-Champ, concluded: “This is an extremely strong piece of work. Bravo! It gives me some hope… It’s rare to find someone who believes in the sequence shot and does it well.”

In 2008, ALT moved away from advertising and cultural operations and created ALT Collection to focus on developing film projects with collaborators and artists from a wide range of backgrounds. Yan is now writing a short feature, Le gardien de parc, which deals with a stranger’s struggles to become part of a group that is foreign to him. Yan is simultaneously producing a number of ads, including promotional work for Cirque du Soleil’s new shows in Asia.