The world premiere of the first Imelda (2014) was at Quebec City Film Festival on September 21st, 2014. The world premiere of the sequel was the opening film at the same festival on September 16th, 2020. Martin Villeneuve was accompanied on the red carpet by his father Jean, and by actor Robert Lepage who portrays him.
Because the real Imelda owned an old Schnauzer called Pipo, Martin Villeneuve wanted a similar dog for this film. The actor-director phoned the dog trainer who had sold the Schnauzer to Imelda in real life some 30 years ago, but he only had a Fox Terrier to offer. Villeneuve took it and the dog trainer came on set to give the filmmaker a hand shooting with the animal, who in the end proved very easy to work with.
The exchange between Robert Lepage as the Notary and Martin Villeneuve as Imelda was shot in only 6 takes; 3 on Lepage and 3 on Villeneuve, since Lepage had very limited time for filming. Because some of the lines were improvised, these 6 takes are radically different, which provided editor Arthur Tarnowski some stimulating yet challenging creative choices to make.
To film the scene where Imelda sits in a rocking chair with her dog in this sequel, Martin Villeneuve went back to his grandmother's former house in the village of Gentilly, Quebec, where he shot the first movie. But the new owners had completely repainted the front porch, which didn't match his recollection of it and vision for the scene. He shot the scene on location nonetheless, and recreated the facade in post-production with a matte painting that he made himself, meticulously adding peeling paint, changing the colors and even including his grandfather's notary plaque. Ironically, as a teenager, Villeneuve had done the exact opposite job in reality, scraping and repainting his grandma's front porch as a summer job.
After facing rejection from Canadian funding agencies for his feature film project based on the award-winning short film Imelda (2014), Martin Villeneuve took the advice of his brother, Denis Villeneuve, and decided to take a different approach. He reunited with his team and filmed two short sequels, Imelda 2: le notaire (2020) starring Robert Lepage and Imelda 3: Simone (2020) starring Ginette Reno, utilizing the available resources. Despite the challenges, Martin self-produced the feature film version, titled Les 12 travaux d'Imelda (2022), which finally premiered in 2022, showcasing his determination and perseverance.