For professional in residence Glen Pitre, premiering a film at Cannes is nothing new, teaching film techniques to college students, on the other hand, is entirely different.

Pitre rose to prominence as a director with his 1986 film “Belizaire the Cajun,” a period piece portraying Louisiana’s Cajun culture. Growing up in Cut Off, his grandparents barely spoke English and stressed the importance of telling stories through the oral tradition, he said.

“In Lafayette, you had to be a musician to be looked up on,” Pitre said. “In Bayou Lafourche, you had to be a storyteller.”

Pitre’s upbringing influenced his first films, he said, made on his days off from offshore work in Cut Off after graduating college in the late ‘70s. 

His films started running in theatres around the state, creating a strong ethnic market for low-budget Cajun French films that didn’t exist previously. As a filmmaker, he brought his personal Cajun background to the films in ways that hadn’t been done before, he said.

After a handful of those movies, he wrote the script for what would become “Belizaire the Cajun” and sent it to a friend in Houston for comments and suggestions. Fatefully, his friend decided to send it to Robert Redford’s newly established Sundance Institute. The film was accepted, and Pitre was given the opportunity to participate in one of Sundance’s first ever director’s labs at Redford’s Utah ranch.

“Belizaire the Cajun” put Pitre on the map, playing all over the world — it was even screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, he hasn’t looked back.

Pitre continued directing a variety of projects, including World War II dramas, a love story behind the building of the Taj Mahal and political sitcoms.

With such an established history, it’s no wonder that Department Chair Jim Catano approached Pitre for a semester-long teaching position in 2014. Pitre happened to have a window of time and agreed to do it; he’s loved it so much that he’s still here three years later.

“Teaching allows me to pass on this body of archaic but hopefully not obsolete knowledge,” Pitre said. “I couldn’t move to Chicago or West Texas for six months to shoot anymore, but truth is, I was so tired of that. I didn’t want to do that anymore.”

This isn’t to say he’s not still making ambitious projects, like the immersive gallery The Historic New Orleans Collection commissioned him to do, “The French Quarter At Night.” Pitre said the film will be projected on all four walls and on top of the ceiling. As visitors walk through the room, they are shown the history of the French Quarter from forest to last night on Bourbon Street in about 20 minutes.

Pitre said that he and his wife used historical recreations, scenes they’ve shot and lots of animation to bring the project to life, hoping to allow tourists to see things they wouldn’t normally.

As with any department at the University, there’s an encouragement in the film school to give students a chance to work on real life projects, Pitre said. Because of this, Pitre put students to work on “The French Quarter At Night,” having them help with sound and editing the film itself.

This goes hand-in-hand with Pitre’s No. 1 piece of advice for budding filmmakers.

“Make movies, and help other people make movies,” Pitre said.

And it’s becoming increasingly easier for students and professionals to get film work in Louisiana, especially opposed to when Pitre started out in the ‘80s, he said. There were only three or four filmmakers in Louisiana at the time, and the infrastructure was nonexistent. Even though the Louisiana film industry isn’t the gold rush it was a few years ago, it’s still big enough that it offers a plethora of opportunities for students to go out and get experience, Pitre said.

Baton Rouge may not have much to offer as far as the film industry goes, but the University’s addition of a bachelor in screen arts shows a shift in emphasis, Pitre said. Things like this make it easier and more encouraging for people to come to the University and pursue film careers.

“Students learn that you can raise a family, save for your retirement, have something that’s rewarding, and do something different, staying right here at home.”