Primal is a surprising new collaborative and interactive experience from Montreal’s NFB team and Encuentro, the Ministry of Education’s television channel in Argentina.

Primal invites you to share your deepest feelings by screaming in front of your computer or your mobile device’s camera.

By participating in Primal, you not only open yourself to the full extent of your expression, you also contribute to creating an eternal scream.

Through this scream, everyone’s primitive expression of his or her innermost recesses comes to light. Whether the scream conveys joy, surprise, anger, fear, hatred or passion, it is the unwinding of the most intense emotions and the most basic instincts—it is universal and brings us back to the roots of humanity.

It is up to you to express yourself by shouting your heart out or screaming until you are out of breath. Primal carefully collects images of each participant in order to create a collective and resounding work that is then revealed to the ears of the world.

Primal is the result of a meeting between Canadian and Argentine artists who combined their technical, visual and conceptual skills to create a virtual space where everyone can scream without restraint.

In addition to being a space for expression, Primal is also a place of discovery. Through video portraits, you can explore the life, environment and reality of six young people in Quebec and Argentina who boldly participated in this screaming game. They filmed their screaming friends, interpreted their own motives, told their life stories, shared their experiences and became directors of their own cries.

Primal is something that is lived, listened to, and shared. Whether you follow it as a viewer or as a participant, Primal leaves you with a new understanding of the profound nature of your fellow human beings.

A study guide on the project allows teachers to further examine the issue and to discuss it with young people by discovering, amongst others, artists who made screaming their subject.

To experience, see, hear and listen to, or to participate in Primal in your own way, visit nfb.ca/primal.

Primal is a collaborative experience on the expression of our most intense feelings, through the creation of an eternal scream. A 9000 km long collaboration between the Canal Encuentro (Argentina) and the National Film Board of Canada.