Sophie Deraspe

In 2006 Deraspe finished her first independent feature, Missing Victor Pellerin — about a mysterious painter who has disappeared — which was screened at the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and in some twenty national and international festivals. At home, it was the opening night film at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Québec city – and later at the Quebec Film Week in San Francisco. The film received national distribution in Canada and screened theatrically in New York in 2007, and received a Special Jury Mention (International competition) at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montréal. Critic Marcel Jean, now director of Cinémathèque québécoise, in the magazine 24 images (no 129), described the film as "unclassifiable" but "promising"; John Griffin, of the The Montreal Gazette, called it “mind game of museum-worthy proportions”; and Annabelle Nicoud, of La Presse called it “one of the most original Quebec films of the year.”

In 2009 her second feature, Vital Signs, premiered at the Festival of New Cinema (Montreal). It took the prize for Best New Canadian Film at the Whistler Film Festival (Canada), where the film's star, Marie-Hélène Bellavance, was named Best Actress for her debut performance. The film also screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Writing for The Montreal Gazette, John Griffin praised the film for “superb acting and cinematography.” Vital Signs went on to win prizes at several 2010 festivals, including SXSW Film Festival (Austin, Texas); the Internationales Frauenfilmfestival (Cologne, Germany); Polar Lights International Arctic Film Festival (Murmansk, Russia); the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Festival Internacional de Cine (Monterrey, Mexico)

2015 was particularly productive for Deraspe, who completed two feature films that year.

The Wolves, a Canada-France co-production, brought together Quebec actors Évelyne Brochu, Louise Portal, Benoît Gouin, Gilbert Sicotte and newcomer Cindy-Mae Arsenault, a native of the Magdalen Islands, where the film was shot. The film depicts a young woman who arrives on an island during the spring thaw and sets out to become part of the community of islanders, who earn their livelihood from seal hunting. The Wolves was shown at the Whistler Film Festival, where Louise Portal's performance received a Special Mention, and at the Torino Film Festival in 2015, where the Fipresci jury named it Best Film.[10] The Wolves was also released theatrically in Quebec.

A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile (its U.S. title) is the director's first feature-length documentary. After its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, the film was shown at numerous other festivals, winning awards for Best Documentary at [[TLVFest in Tel Aviv, Israel, and GAZE in Dublin, Ireland, as well as the Grand Prize at Japan Prize in 2016, before IFC Films acquired the U.S. rights for distribution theatrically and on their digital platform docclub.com [archive]. La Presse gave it 4½ stars, calling it “powerful, brilliant... extremely well constructed” while Variety praised its “slippery, deftly woven narrative.”

For this 2019 multidisciplinary omnibus project, Sophie Deraspe joined six other directors — musician and composer Kaveh Nabatian, along with Ariane Lorrain, Sophie Goyette, Juan Andrés Arango, Karl Lemieux and Caroline Monnet — to produce a septet of short films all themed on the sayings of Jesus on the cross.[11] Unified by the music of the Callino Quartet, the films were shot in Iran, Haiti, Colombia, Nunavut and Québec in 35mm, 16mm and HD while Marc Boucrot (of Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void and Love) was the film's editor. Justine Smith wrote that Deraspe's short had “the greatest impact” of the seven short films.[11]

A contemporary adaptation of the Sophocles play, Antigone, written and directed by Deraspe, revisited the myth in a story of a 16-year-old girl and three siblings who have immigrated to Canada with their grandmother after the murder of their parents. When the police kill her older brother and the other brother is threatened with deportation, Antigone struggles to save what remains of her family. At the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival it was named Best Canadian Feature Film and was chosen to represent Canada at the Academy Awards in contention for Best International Feature Film.

• 2006: Missing Victor Pellerin

• 2012: Les dames aux caméras : as herself

• 2006: Missing Victor Pellerin
• 2009: Vital Signs
• 2014: The Wolves
• 2015: A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile (documentary)
• 2019: The Seven Last Words
• 2019: Antigone

• 2011: La part du déterminisme

• 2012: La vie nous arrive (documentary)

• 2006: Missing Victor Pellerin
• 2009: Vital Signs
• 2019: The Seven Last Words
• 2019: Antigone

• 2000: Solitude dans la foule
• 2007: Pierre Gauvin, un moine moderne
• 2011: La part du déterminisme