Léonard Forest was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1928. His parents, who were Acadians, returned with the family to Moncton, New Brunswick in 1930, and it was here that Forest was educated. His years in primary school were followed by classical studies at Collège Saint-Joseph-de-Memramcook, where he fondly remembers that he founded a film club, no doubt the first in Acadia.

Because of his interest in film, Forest started a cinema column while working as a journalist on L'Évangéline, a daily paper in Moncton. He then went on to spend a year as a radio journalist in Montreal before joining the National Film Board in 1953, where he remained throughout his career.

His filmmaking career often took him back to Acadia, where he directed a number of films including Les Acadiens de la Dispersion, La noce est pas finie and A Sun Like Nowhere Else (Un Soleil pas comme Ailleurs). Prior to this, in 1954-55, he both wrote the script and acted as an assistant director on The Dikes (Les aboiteaux), a docudrama that uses contemporary characters to explore the role that the dikes have played in Acadian history.

For more than thirty years Forest was one of the key people in the NFB's French production unit, occupying such positions as the Director of French-language Production Unit and Director of the French Production Program Committee. He has some 130 film credits to his name for his work as a scriptwriter, director, film editor and producer.

Forest has also worked on a number of films outside Acadia, including, most notably, on In Search of Innocence (À la recherche de l'innocence) in Vancouver; on Walls of Memory (Mémoire en fête) in Québec; and on Far From Away: The Arts in St. John's (Saint-Jean-sur-Ailleurs) in Newfoundland.

In addition to his activities as a filmmaker, Léonard Forest has also had a full-fledged literary career. As well as publishing numerous poems, essays and short stories in literary journals in Quebec and Acadia, he has also published three collections of poetry and a collection of essays. Radio-Canada has frequently broadcast his poems and radio dramas.

His first collection of poems, Saisons antérieure, was published by Éditions d'Acadie in Moncton in 1973. This was followed in 1980 by another poetry collection, Comme en Florence, which won the Prix France-Acadie. Forest's collection of essays, La jointure du temps (Éditions Perce-Neige), appeared in 1998, and won the Prix Champlain 1999, given out by the Conseil de la Vie française en Amérique. In 2001, Éditions Perce-Neige published Le pommier d'août, a retrospective of Léonard Forest's poetic works. It includes an equal number of published and previously unpublished poems.

In 2001 the Université de Moncton awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in recognition of his work as both a filmmaker and a writer. The following year, he was the subject of a special tribute at the Northrop Frye Festival in Moncton, where he was honoured for both his literary and cinematic contributions.

Forest has also written two storybooks for "children of all ages" entitled respectively Les trois pianos (2003) and Ni queue ni tête (2004). Both were published by Éditions Bouton d'or Acadie (Moncton),

In 2005, Léonard Forest was awarded the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Excellence in Cinematographic Arts given out by the New Brunswick Arts Council.

Léonard Forest has lived in Moncton since 1990, where he frequently takes part in public readings and continues to write poems, essays and short stories.

 Filmography

1954 THE CHARWOMAN/ LA FEMME DE MÉNAGE
Director

1955 THE DIKES/ LES ABOITEAUX
Scriptwriter, Assistant Director

1956 FISHERMEN OF PUBNICO/ PÊCHEURS DE POMCOUP
Scriptwriter and Director

1956    LA VIE EST COURTE
Scriptwriter

1956    PASSE-PARTOUT  (five-part television drama series)
Script Consultant and Producer

1956    LE MONDE DES FEMMES
Director

1957    AMITIÉS HAÏTIENNES
Scriptwriter, Director and Narrator

1957-1958 PANORAMIQUE  (six-part television series)
Script Concept and Consultant, and Producer

LES BRULÉS
LE MAÎTRE DU PÉROU
IL ÉTAIT UNE GUERRE
LES MAINS NETTES
LES 90 JOURS

1958-1959  Director of the French-language Production Unit and of the French Television team. In this role he conceived of and directed the production of close to a dozen films about such notable French-Canadians as Germaine Guèvremont, Félix Leclerc, Marius Barbeau, Lionel Groulx, Édouard Simard, and Saint-Denis Garneau.

1958 HAITI/ BONJOU' SOLEIL
Scriptwriter, Director and Narrator

1960    L'HÉRITAGE
Scriptwriter and Producer

1961-1962   Winner of a Canada Council Award for Study in France

1962 MUMFORD ON THE CITY/ LA CITÉ IDÉALE 
Conception and Direction of special sequences and contributing footage shot in Paris and in the countryside for a series of six half-hour films.

1963 IN SEARCH OF INNOCENCE/ À LA RECHERCHE DE L'INNOCENCE
Scriptwriter and Director

1964    WALL OF MEMORY/ MÉMOIRE EN FÊTE
Scriptwriter, Director and Narrator

1968    LES ACADIENS DE LA DISPERSION
Scriptwriter, Editor and Director

1969   LA NOCE EST PAS FINIE
Film Concept, Editor and Director

1970    "CHALLENGE FOR CHANGE" PROGRAM
Léonard Forest was given the responsibility for restructuring and directing a team known simply by the title "Social Research Group/ Groupe de recherche sociale". Their aim was to shed light on social problems by making a special film series focussing on various aspects of social change, a series that sought to give a voice to the voiceless in society.

1972   A SUN LIKE NOWHERE ELSE/ UN SOLEIL PAS COMME AILLEURS
Scriptwriter and Director

1973-1975 For 2 years Forest was the Director of the French-language program production Committee at the NFB. He also served as founding president of the Syndicat général du cinéma et de la television (SGCT).

 1980   FAR FROM AWAY: THE ARTS IN ST.JOHN'S/ SAINT-JEAN-SUR-AILLEURS
Scriptwriter, Director, Editor and Simultaneous Translator

1980   PORTRAIT: GERALD SQUIRES OF NEWFOUNDLAND
Scriptwriter and Director

<Watch Léonard Forest's films on NFB.ca