1. Media Space

  2. Press Releases

The NFB at the Quebec City Film Festival. World premiere of the feature-length documentary Pauline Julien, intime et politique (Pauline Julien, Intimate and Political) by Pascale Ferland.

PRESS RELEASE
22/08/2018

August 22, 2018 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) returns to the Quebec City Film Festival (QCFF), a major film event that runs from September 13 to 22, 2018, with the world premiere of Pauline Julien, intime et politique (Pauline Julien, intimate and political), directed by Pascale Ferland and produced by the NFB in collaboration with Radio-Canada.

Two NFB animated shorts will also be shown in the official selection: Manivald, by Chintis Lundgren, the recipient of multiple awards and selected for over 70 festivals around the world, and The Tesla World Light, by Matthew Rankin, which has been exceptionally well-received on the festival circuit, starting with a selection at Cannes.

Pauline Julien, intime et politique (77 min 39 s) – World Premiere
Produced at the NFB by Johanne Bergeron, with executive producer Colette Loumède.

Pauline Julien would have been 90 years old in 2018. Twenty years after her death, the latest documentary by Pascale Ferland captures the essence of the iconic Quebec singer—a passionately committed and eternally free spirit. Comprising a meticulous selection of interviews, performances and photos drawn from a vast and rich archival collection, the film follows Julien on a journey. Uncompromising and at times vulnerable, the artist tells her story through personal anecdotes and excerpts from her diary.

Pascale Ferland will be at the festival to present her film on Saturday, September 15 at 3:30 p.m., and will be available in Quebec City for media interviews on Friday, September 14. To mark the world premiere, performers from the musical tribute La Renarde, sur les traces de Pauline Julien, produced by Spectra Musique, will give a short presentation. The film will open theatrically in Quebec on September 21.

About Pascale Ferland

Pascale Ferland studied visual arts at UQAM, where she made several videos, including Dormir ou une allégorie sur le sommeil, which earned an academic award. In 2003, she made her first feature documentary, L’immortalité en fin de compte (Something Like Immortality), and then founded the production company Qui vivra verra films, where she directed L’arbre aux branches coupées (Tree with Severed Branches) in 2005, among other works. That same year, she co-founded Les Films du 3 mars, a distributor of independent films. In 2007, the high quality of her work earned her the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award. After shooting Adagio pour un gars de bicycle (Adagio for a Biker) in 2008, she made her first fiction feature, Ressac (Riptide) in 2012. She is currently finishing the script for her second fiction feature, Rapace.

Animated shorts in the official selection

Manivald by Chintis Lundgren (12 min 57 s)
Produced by Chintis Lundgren (Chintis Lundgreni Animatsioonistuudio, Estonia), Draško Ivezić (Adriatic Animation, Croatia) and Jelena Popović (NFB), with Michael Fukushima as executive producer.

  • Selected to screen at over 70 festivals, including Sundance, Annecy, South by Southwest and Hiroshima, and the recipient of 18 international awards.
  • Manivald the fox has just turned 33. Overeducated, unemployed and uninspired, living with his mother, he has an easy life, but not a good one. But all this starts to change when the washing machine breaks down and Toomas, a sexy wolf repairman, arrives to fix it—and them.

THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT by Matthew Rankin (8 min 18 s)
Produced at the NFB by Julie Roy.

  • The film had its world premiere at the 2017 International Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival.
  • Honourable mention ex-aequo at TIFF 2017, along with other awards in Canadian and American festivals. THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT was also selected to screen at the 17th Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival
  • Visionary inventor Nikola Tesla writes to financier J.P. Morgan in this experimental animated film. Inspired by real events, this electrifying short is a spectacular burst of image and sound that draws as much from the tradition of avant-garde cinema as it does from animated documentary.

–30–

Related Products

Electronic Press Kit | Images, trailers, synopsis: Manivald | Pauline Julien, intimate and political | THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT

Associated Links

Quebec City Film Festival
Radio-Canada
La Renarde, sur les traces de Pauline Julien
Spectra Musique
Chintis Lundgreni Animatsioonistuudio
Adriatic Animation

Media Relations

  • Nadine Viau
    NFB Publicist – Montreal
    C.: 514-458-9745
    n.viau@nfb.ca

  • Lily Robert
    Director, Communications and Public Affairs, NFB
    C.: 514-296-8261
    l.robert@nfb.ca

  • About the NFB

    Founded in 1939, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is a one-of-a-kind producer, co-producer and distributor of distinctive, engaging, relevant and innovative documentary and animated films. As a talent incubator, it is one of the world’s leading creative centres. The NFB has enabled Canadians to tell and hear each other’s stories for over eight decades, and its films are a reliable and accessible educational resource. The NFB is also recognized around the world for its expertise in preservation and conservation, and for its rich and vibrant collection of works, which form a pillar of Canada’s cultural heritage. To date, the NFB has produced more than 14,000 works, 6,500 of which can be streamed free of charge at nfb.ca. The NFB and its productions and co-productions have earned over 7,000 awards, including 11 Oscars and an Honorary Academy Award for overall excellence in cinema.