The slickest dude I?ve seen at the festival this year is an actor so little you can?t even call him a young man, that would be reserved for say ? Michael Sera.   Antoine L'Écuyer may or may not have even tackled long division in school yet, but he melted the hearts of a packed Elgin Winter Garden during the premiere of C?est Pas Moi, Je Le Jure (I Didn?t Do It, I Swear).

The first question for director Philippe Falardeau, winner of the Citytv Award for Best Canadian First Feature in 2000, was ?Where did you find this amazing young man??

It was no miracle.  ?Casting,? said the clever director, ?We saw over 100 boys and I knew right away just by the way he was standing, I mean just look at him stand.?

Little L'Écuyer stands on stage like he?s Barrack Obama after hitting those three pointers in Iraq.  He owns the joint.  The kid probably owns most joints he walks into.  He was remarkably gracious, beeming with pride, not exactly nervous even though he couldn?t understand the English questions of his adoring audience.

After his painfully lovable, virtuoso performance (this isn?t hyperbole) L'Écuyer probably could have destroyed the mic stand Johnny Rotten-style and the crowd would have erupted with transcendent joy.

The film is about a 10-year-old boy with metaphysical questions and a tendency towards ?suicide accidents? and extreme acts of callous vandalism. 

?I?m taking French lessons and in French he would be called an enfant terrible?I think,? quipped Steve Gravestock, Associate Director of the Canadian Film Programme.

Even the most horrific of little Leon?s misadventures (destroying a piano with a screwdriver, urinating on a mink coat) drew adoring gasps of pure love from every mother in the audience.  From the sounds the ladies around me were making it seemed their own son was on screen.  I?m sure any one of them would have taken the petit garçon diable home and raised him without a second thought if presented the opportunity.

C?est Pas Moi, Je Le Jure is also one of the sweetest ten-year-old love stories you?ll ever see, and a brilliant examination of family dynamics filled with whimsy and all the right nostalgiac compliments for it?s 1968 suburban Quebec setting.

While a very different film, what kept coming to mind for me was Juno.  If you thought Ellen Page?s gutsy little performance was almost too sweet to bare, you ain?t seen nothing yet. 

 ----L'Écuyer and Director Philippe Falardeau ----

----L'Écuyer's onscren parents----