Gilles Villeneuve's daughter backs TIFF film about his rise from snowmobiles to Formula One Melanie Villeneuve says Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend offers a rare focus on her father's early racing years before his Formula One career. Directed by Yan Lanouette Turgeon and starring Rémi Goulet, the French-language Canadian film is set to close TIFF before its Quebec theatrical release. Melanie Villeneuve is backing a new film about her father's journey from snowmobile racing in Quebec to Formula One, saying Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend gives audiences a chance to see a side of the Canadian racing legend that is rarely explored. The film will close the Toronto International Film Festival with a world premiere on Sept. 19. The French-language Canadian feature is directed by Yan Lanouette Turgeon and stars Quebec actor Rémi Goulet as Gilles Villeneuve. A press and industry screening was introduced as a work in progress, but the film is scheduled to open in Quebec theatres on Nov. 11. A wider release has not yet been announced.In the 44 years since Gilles Villeneuve died in a racing crash, his story has often been revisited on the anniversary of his death or around major achievements. He was killed in May 1982 during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, when the front chassis of his car was torn away and he was thrown helmetless into trackside fencing. He died soon afterward. Other commemorations have focused on his victory at the 1978 Montreal Grand Prix.That win made him the first Canadian driver to win a Formula One race. The new film instead concentrates on the years before that achievement, when Villeneuve was a young man from Berthierville, Que. , trying to turn a passion for snowmobile racing into a career in open-wheel competition. Melanie Villeneuve said she had rarely seen that part of her father's life receive sustained attention.When she received a script in 2018, she abandoned ideas for developing her own project, possibly an English-language miniseries, and gave her support to the filmmakers. I don't think there's another driver, except for him and his brother, that came to be driving open-wheelers through snowmobiles, she said. She added that she wanted the film to focus on that unusual path, and believed the filmmakers had done so. Villeneuve eventually became an executive producer on the project.She said the screenplay showed that her father had to make major sacrifices and was completely devoted to driving, which he viewed almost as an art. He was also a mechanic and an engineer who loved engines and speed, she said, and reached Formula One through determination and sheer force of will. The project itself faced a long and difficult route to the screen. Production was interrupted by financing problems, the COVID-19 pandemic and a change in leadership.Director Daniel Roby, who had first met Melanie and her mother, Joann, in 2014 while researching a documentary, later brought them the script. Roby and the production eventually parted ways. Le Journal de Montreal reported in 2024 that Roby and the producer had disagreed over how strongly the film should emphasize racing. Lanouette Turgeon ultimately replaced Roby and completed the project.Melanie visited the production in Valcourt, Que. , while snowmobiling scenes were being filmed. She recalled that the temperature was about minus 40 and that she had arrived wearing jeans and a short jacket rather than clothing suitable for the conditions. She said she was freezing throughout the visit, but was glad to see the film finally taking shape.Seeing Goulet dressed as her father was unsettling for her. She described the experience as bizarre and said it could feel like a mind trick, even though she knew the actor was not Gilles. Still, she said she tried to push through the discomfort and found the result strange but beautiful. Melanie was nine years old when her father died.Her brother Jacques was 11 and later became Canada's first Formula One world champion. She said her feelings changed over time, moving from intense grief and anger during her teenage years to distance as she tried to mature in her twenties. Now in her fifties, Melanie said she understands her father more clearly.In recent years, she has researched his past and read books about him, supplementing the memories and stories shared by her mother and her racing uncle, Jacques Villeneuve. That work has made her feel closer to her father than ever before. There are still moments of pain, she said, but she is now transferring those feelings into happiness.The film has become part of that process, allowing her to engage with his legacy while also helping a broader audience understand the person behind the famous driver. After Gilles died, a Montreal racetrack was renamed in his honour and his hometown opened a museum dedicated to him. Melanie said the family, however, never had the marketing and merchandise empire that now surrounds many Formula One stars. She began addressing that gap with a Gilles merchandise line in 2025.The film represented a larger opportunity because it could bring her father's story to people who might know his name and racing reputation but not the struggle and ambition that preceded his Formula One career.