2 Frogs in the West

2 Frogs in the West is a Canadian comedy-drama film, released in 2010. The directorial debut of filmmaker and actor Dany Papineau, the film premiered in Montreal on October 8, 2010. It stars Mirianne Brulé, Dany Papineau, Jessica Malka, Germain Houde, and Charlie David. Plot The film stars Mirianne Brulé as Marie, a restless young woman from Quebec who decides to drop out of university and hitchhike west to Whistler, British Columbia on a voyage of self-discovery, much to her parents' dismay. The journey to British Columbia is not an easy one, as along the way Marie experiences a myriad of bumps and mishaps, with her finally arriving in Whistler only to have her luggage stolen. After this exasperating ordeal a man by the name of Jean-François (Papineau), who is also from Québec, takes Marie in to stay with him and his two roommates, his ex-girlfriend Gaby (Malka) and their gay friend Brad (Barton). During her time there Marie experiments sexually with Gaby and through this is drawn into an unexpected love triangle with both J-F and Gaby. The film's cast also includes Brandon Barton, Juan Riedinger, Anik Vermette, Germain Houde, Diane Lavallée, Valérie Chevalier, Charlie David, Bruno Baronet, Adam Bergquist, Rick Tae, Niels Schneider, Bill Marchant and Linda Darlow. Inspiration for the film The film is directly inspired by director Papineau's own experience travelling from his home province of Québec to Alberta during his undergraduate degree. While in Québec he had been studying engineering at Sherbrooke, but after spending a summer on a ranch in Banff, Alberta, decided to stay there instead of returning to Sherbrooke. After having such a successful time in the western part of Canada he decided to enroll at the Vancouver Film School for a yearlong program and ended up living in Vancouver for six years. Papineau first wrote 2 Frogs as a 21-minute short film in 2004, and after receiving much acting success as a result, was able to turn the short film into the feature-length film it is today. During an interview with Papineau at the 2010 Whistler Film Festival, Papineau highlighted how the inspiration for the movie came from how the young adults who come to Whistler from all around the world go there for a couple of months to help determine what they want to do with their lives. He expressed how he felt a lot of people would recognize themselves in the film because of this.