DESCRIPTION:
Stephen Hart (a Montreal lawyer) organized a fund raiser for Au Contraire Film Festival and Philip Tétrault which took place on October 8, 2014 at the valerie Antoine Ertaskiran.
Philip is a poet/painter and a street person who lives with schizophrenia. Philip is warmly loved by family and friends and his artistic output is quite astonishing. Philip is well know amongst a certain group of Montrealer's including Philip's friend, Leonard Cohen.
Philip was featured in a National Film Board documentary called "This Beggar's Description" (2005) by his film-maker brother Pierre Tétrault.
Au Contraire Film Festival is a film festival that strives to raise the awareness of mental illness.

If you want to know more about Philip, look for his brother's documentary.
Here is a review of that documentary…

The Montreal Gazette reported, in a story titled "Immortalizing a brother's beautiful mind"
"Even in a city top-heavy with eccentric characters, Philip Tetrault stands out. He is a poet, painter and master of the pan flute. He is a friend to the famous and the infamous. He has lived among the well-heeled and the hobos. He is also a diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Few know more about the highs and lows of Philip Tetrault's existence than his brother Pierre. A playwright, actor and stage director, Pierre was determined to document Philip's life on screen. And Philip was not about to entrust that job to anyone other than his brother. So Pierre switched media focus and makes his film debut with Philip's saga, This Beggar's Description, which marks its premiere Tuesday at the Montreal World Film Festival."

The reporter adds that:

"Because the subject matter is so intensely personal, Pierre admits it was difficult to chronicle his brother's harrowing odyssey, an unending round trip to hell and back. Yet he has deftly captured many of the loose ends in Philip's life. Painful, yes, but also a passionate and whimsical tale of the artist as a tortured man."

Its reported that "The documentary's most stirring moments feature the three most influential women in Philip's life: his mother, the mother of his daughter and his daughter, all of who have shown unwavering support for the man. The footage depicting Philip's conflicted daughter is particularly poignant."

As for his turn on screen, Philip concedes it is difficult to watch himself. "I realize that I'm exposing myself to the world, but in the process I've purged myself from so much that I have been hiding all these years."

So where does Philip go from here? He doesn't hesitate to respond: "Bifteck, Copacabana, Elsa's - I'll work my way down the bars of the street," he muses. "Then I'll hop into my Cessna and head for the south of France. Or maybe Florida. I'm not sure. And if not, well, maybe I'll continue writing my poems, painting and playing the pan flute every Sunday at church."