Next season’s Artists’ Talks series unveiled!
In 2023–2024, the National Film Board of Canada, in partnership with the Sommets du cinéma d’animation, will be presenting a diverse program of events in its Artists’ Talks series. You won’t want to miss this rich season of sharing and discussion within the animation community!
Film title: Les gens dans l’armoire
Filmmaker: Dahee Jeong
Technique: 2D animation
A co-production of Miyu (France), Between the Pictures (South Korea) and the NFB
Language of talk: French
Korean filmmaker Dahee Jeong will be in Montreal for post-production on her new short, Les gens dans l’armoire. During her stay in the city, she’ll use the opportunity to take us inside her animation art and reveal the secrets of her creative process. Her film is about a world in which the characters are made only of clothes, except for one little girl who has a body and shows up one day not wearing anything…
Film title: Maybe Elephants
Filmmaker: Torill Kove
Technique: 2D animation
A co-production of Mikrofilm (Norway) and the NFB
Language of talk: English
Following Me and My Moulton, filmmaker Torill Kove explores another era in her family’s life. Bored with their seemingly routine lives in Norway, Kove’s parents uproot the family and relocate to Nairobi, Kenya. This is a story about that uprooting, about adventure and misadventure, and about the long road travelled that inevitably leads to one’s true home. And self.
Film title: Le tableau (The Painting)
Filmmaker: Michèle Lemieux
Technique: Pinscreen animation
An NFB production
Language of talk: French
In 2024, Michèle Lemieux will complete her latest short, Le tableau, using pinscreen animation. This visually poetic non-narrative film revisits Diego Vélasquez’s 1652 portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria with genuine feeling. The heir to the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen technique, Lemieux will cover the creative process around this method of animation.
Film title: LOCA
Filmmaker: Véronique Paquette
Technique: India ink on paper
An NFB production
Language of talk: French
Véronique Paquette’s first short film with the NFB, LOCA, is filled with rhythm and motion. With dynamic energy captured using India ink on paper, the filmmaker shows how dancing a liberating tango with a stranger enables a woman to reconnect with herself.
Film title: Something Over There (working title)
Filmmaker: Arash Akhgari
Techniques: Collage, ink-and-paint animation
An NFB production
Language of talk: English
In this talk, Arash Akhgari will reveal his creative process for Something Over There, a hypnotizing blend of moving collage and ink & paint animation that immerses viewers in an ocean of content: news, advertisements, entertainment, fashion. It becomes a swirling vortex of images and sounds, a mix of conflicting emotions, an intoxicating brew of mass media that one can easily drown in.
Film title: Wheetago War (working title)
Filmmaker: Amanda Strong
Technique: Stop-motion
A co-production of Spotted Fawn Productions and the NFB
Language of talk: English
Based on a Richard Van Camp novel, the short film Wheetago War is a captivating story about the far-off future, when the Wheetago—an ancient race of humans cursed with insatiable thirst and hunger—return from the ice where they were buried. In this talk, Amanda Strong shares the secrets of creating this stop-motion film and takes us inside her artistic process.
Guest: Olivier Calvert, sound designer
Language of talk: French
This year, the honour of giving the artist’s talk at the Sommets du cinéma d’animation falls to Olivier Calvert. At this talk, this talented artist—who’s worked on acclaimed NFB films such as Claude Cloutier’s Sleeping Betty, Theodore Ushev’s The Physics of Sorrow and, most recently, Joanna Quinn and Les Mills’ Affairs of the Art—will discuss the role of the sound designer.