Nostalgia/Broken Images: Quebec's Contemporary Experimental Animation

This program of recent Quebec's experimental animation works was largely built around the notions of found footage, iconoclasm and nostalgia. Iconoclasm is at the core of five films of the program: HEAD (D.-E. Simard, F. Dufour-Laperrière, 2006), THE STATUE OF GIORDANO BRUNO (P. Hébert, 2005), RH FACTOR (A. Grimanis, S. Woloshen, 2007), REBUTTAL (S. Woloshen, 2005) and WESTERN SUNBURN (K. Lemieux, 2007). With their abstract nature, X-MEN (C. Hinton, 2002), TRASH AND NO STAR (K. Lemieux, C. Blanchet, 2008) and RUPTURE (J. Detheux, 2005) are eschewing the figurative image. These films represent an important movement in Québec since Norman McLaren introduced abstract animation at the beginning of the '40s. Inspired by an experience by McLaren, Experiment 02_06 (D. McWilliams, A. Reiko Loader, 2006) is a singular tribute to the greatest figure of Canadian animation. FRAGRANT LIGHT (S. Clément, 2002), DENSITY 1 (Defasten, 2005), ONE TWO THREE DUSK (F. Dufour-Laperrière, 2005) and WESTERN SUNBURN are dealing in a very direct way with the concept of nostalgia, using photographic representation as memories of the past. (Marcel Jean)