Biography
French-Canadian filmmaker Alain Desrochers scored a huge box office hit in his native country with "Nitro" (2007), a thriller about illegal street racing, which set the tone for a string of subsequent action efforts, including "Nitro Rush" (2016) and "Security" (2017). He received his education at St.-Jean-Sur-Richelieu College and Concordia University before launching his career by directing music videos for such French-speaking artists as Celine Dion and numerous television advertisements. Desrochers also directed several short films before venturing into television, directing several episodes of the syndicated horror series "The Hunger" (The Movie Network/Showtime, 1997-2000) before making his feature debut with "The Bottle" (2000), a quirky comedy about childhood friends returning to their hometown in search of the titular object, which contains a list they wrote as adolescents of their future goals. The film earned Desrochers a Genie nomination for Best Direction, and a slew of assignments for Canadian television series like "Charlie Jade" (Space, 2005). Two years later, he scored a huge box office hit with "Nitro" (2007), an action-thriller about a former drag racer who must return to competition in order to raise funds for his girlfriend's heart transplant. The film earned sizable box office numbers in its first weekend, besting competition from Hollywood blockbusters like "Live Free or Die Hard" (2007). Desrochers worked steadily in the decade that followed "Nitro," helming miniseries like "Musee Eden" (Christal Films, 2010) and features like "Gerry" (2011), a biopic of the late French-Canadian rocker Gerry Boulet. In 2016, he began production on "Nitro Rush," a sequel to his most successful feature film; a flurry of additional action films, including "Bon Cop Bad Cop 2" (2017), with Colm Feore, and "Security" (2017), with Antonio Banderas, Ben Kingsley and Jiro Wang.
