August 29, 2017 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) will return to the Quebec City Film Festival (QCFF) this year with eight short films exploring a wide variety of styles and subjects. Quebec City audiences will have a chance to view Chroniques du 9e art (Comic Strip Chronicles) (Canal+/Sacrebleu Productions/NFB), a quartet of witty animated shorts that will be making their North American premiere before screening on the NFB’s online platforms and airing in French on ICI ARTV. Kevin D. A. Kurytnik and Carol Beecher’s mythical look at the fur trade, Skin for Skin (J’aurai ta peau…) (NFB), will be presented in competition at the festival, while Threads (Rubans) (Mikrofilm AS/NFB), the latest film by Oscar-winning animator Torill Kove, will make its Quebec premiere. Two documentaries from the 5 Shorts Project, Carrière (Stone Makers) by Jean-Marc E. Roy and Dialogue(s) by Philippe David Gagné (NFB/La bande Sonimage), have also been selected. The QCFF will run from September 13 to 23, 2017. All films will be screened in French.
Chroniques du 9e art (Comic Strip Chronicles) (4 x 3 min) – North American premiere
- Launched at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Chroniques du 9e art celebrates the affinity between comic books and animated films. The collection comprises four three-minute shorts created by acclaimed cartoonists from Quebec and France. Director Zviane will be at the Festival.
The four shorts:
Ø La dent (The Tooth), directed by Guy Delisle (Canada)
The tooth fairy is a no-show in this whimsical look at fatherhood starring the “bad dad” from Quebecker Guy Delisle’s popular cartoon collection, Le guide du mauvais père. Featuring the voices of actors François Létourneau and Frédéric Larose.
Ø La pureté de l’enfance (Sweet Childhood), directed by Zviane (Canada)
Cartoonist Zviane is transported back to her childhood when she stumbles across a cassette she recorded back in the day. Using an actual recording from the cartoonist’s youth, the film hilariously captures the vivid imagination of a child.
Ø Chronique panoramique (Panoramic Chronicle), directed by Lewis Trondheim and Jean Matthieu Tanguy (France)
What do people think about while riding on a train? Lewis Trondheim and Jean Matthieu Tanguy wittily imagine the inner lives of a series of passengers in this insightful film narrated by French singer-songwriter Thomas Fersen.
Ø L’amour libre (Free Love), directed by Aude Picault (France)
Two women meet in a café to catch up, but the air is heavy with things left unsaid… This film takes a sly look at the jealousy that sometimes lies beneath friendships.
- The collection is an international co-production between the NFB (Julie Roy and Marc Bertrand), Canal+, and Sacrebleu Productions (Ron Dyens).
- Online: the films will be available for free on the NFB’s social media and online platforms, including NFB.ca, starting Friday, September 15, everywhere except the French-speaking regions of Europe and Africa.
- TV broadcast (in French): Monday, September 18, at 10:30 p.m. on ICI ARTV on the program Artistes en vedette.
Skin for Skin (J’aurai ta peau…) by Kevin D. A. Kurytnik and Carol Beecher (15 min) – in competition
- After making its world premiere at the Fantasia festival in Montreal, this animated short returns to Quebec in competition at the QCFF. A dark allegory of greed and spiritual reckoning, Skin for Skin is set during the early days of the North American fur trade. In 1823, the governor of the world’s largest fur-trading company travels across his dominion, extracting ever-greater riches from the winter bounty of animal furs. In his brutal world of profit and loss, animals are slaughtered to the brink of extinction. But one day, the balance of power shifts and the forces of nature exact their own terrible price. With nods to Melville and Coleridge, directors Kevin Kurytnik and Carol Beecher have created a visually stunning contemporary myth about the cost of arrogance and greed.
- Produced by Bonnie Thompson (NFB) and Carol Beecher (Fifteen Pound Pink Productions). Executive produced by David Christensen (NFB).
Threads (Rubans) by Torill Kove (9 min) – Quebec premiere
- The film explores the beauty and complexity of parental love, the bonds that we form over time, and the ways in which they stretch and shape us. It’s the fourth NFB co-produced animated short for Kove, winner of an Academy Award for The Danish Poet (2006) and an Oscar nominee for My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts (1999) and Me and My Moulton (2014). A film without words, Threads speaks volumes about the attachments we crave, form and sometimes grieve, as they evolve in ways that can leave us feeling lonely or left behind—as any parent of an adopted or biological child knows only too well. With her signature style of minimalistic characters and simple line drawings, Kove takes us on a journey that is at once intimate in its telling and expansive in its scope.
- The film is produced by Lise Fearnley and Tonje Skar Reiersen for Mikrofilm AS and Michael Fukushima for the NFB.
Carrière (Stone Makers) by Jean-Marc E. Roy and Dialogue(s) by Philippe David Gagné
- Both of these films are from the 5 Shorts Project, an NFB initiative that explores the short documentary genre by working with artist-run centres or production centres in different regions of Quebec. This second edition was created in partnership with La bande Sonimage, a Saguenay-based organization that supports cinema and video production in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. The films were produced by Denis McCready and Colette Loumède (NFB) and Claudia Chabot (La bande Sonimage).
- Carrière by Jean-Marc E. Roy (6 min)
A routine workday in a granite quarry turns into a captivating industrial symphony. While men work in the background, heavy equipment and machines perform for the camera as if they were dancers in a contemporary ballet.
- Dialogue(s) by Philippe David Gagné (6 min)
Air force pilots, two fans of modified cars and a heavy metal band are the unlikely focus of a deadpan film-essay on language. Through clever, unpredictable editing, Philippe David Gagné takes great delight in revealing the strange ways in which men communicate.
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Related Products
Electronic Press Kit | Images, trailers, synopsis: Comic Strip Chronicles | Dialogue(s) | Skin for Skin | Stone Makers | Threads
Associated Links
Quebec City Film Festival
Canal+
Sacrebleu Productions
ICI ARTV
Mikrofilm AS
La bande Sonimage