Filiatrault attained star status on TV in the 1960s, co-starring with Dominique Michel in the Radio-Canadatelevision seriesMoi et l'autre and in many editions of Radio-Canada's annual New Year's special, Bye Bye. She had further success in Chez Denise, Le 101, avenue des Pins and Denise... aujourd'hui. In addition to her television career, Filiatrault also performed in films and on stage, notably in works by Michel Tremblay. She was known to perform both comic and dramatic roles, such as André Brassard's film version of Tremblay's Once Upon a Time in the East , in Denys Arcand's Gina, in several Franco-Canadian co-productions, specifically Gilles Carle's The Death of a Lumberjack, Fantastica and, in 1981, Carle's The Plouffe Family , playing the tormented Cécile. Following Les Plouffe, Filiatrault took a break from film, concentrating more in writing and directing for theatre and summer comedy. Filiatrault then decided to take the leap to directing cinema by adapting Tremblay's novel C't'à ton tour, Laura Cadieux into the 1998 filmIt's Your Turn, Laura Cadieux, presenting the world of overweight women yearning for love and affection. Filiatrault opted for a simple yet effective style that showcased the talents of the film's strong female leads. This dramatic comedy scored such success that Filiatrault wrote and directed the 1999 sequel Laura Cadieux II , in which she further developed the characters and their world. In 2002, she produced a new comedy fantasy, Alice's Odyssey , which received a lukewarm response from critics and moviegoers. In 2003, taking advantage of the success of her motion picture characters, Filiatrault produced a television miniseries for TVA, Le Petit monde de Laura Cadieux, before tackling a new film Bittersweet Memories , a dramatic biography of 1930s-1950s singer Alys Robi. In 2006 Filiatrault received the Jutra Award for her overall career. As artistic director of the Théâtre du Rideau Vert, she and the theatre were criticized in January 2015 by a coalition of Montreal arts groups for a year-end production in which a Caucasian actor portrayed hockey player P.K. Subban in blackface. Filiatrault responded that she was "shocked, outraged, and humiliated" by the reaction, saying that she had been in show business for 60 years and was the first person to hire a black Quebecer on television.
