March 15, 2015 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Two National Film Board of Canada (NFB) co-productions were honoured at the 17th Soirée des Jutra on Sunday night. The annual gala celebrating Quebec film was broadcast live on television.
Jutra, directed and produced by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre (MJSTP Films) in co-production with the NFB (Marc Bertrand), won the award for Best Animated Short or Medium-length Film. The award comes directly after Saint-Pierre’s win in the Best Short Documentary category at the Canadian Screen Awards on March 1, presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television in recognition of excellence in film, television and digital media. Based on skilfully assembled archival footage and animated sequences, Jutra is an ingenious portrait of the great Quebec filmmaker Claude Jutra, director of Mon oncle Antoine.
Finding Macpherson, directed by documentary filmmaker Serge Giguère and co-produced by Nicole Hubert and Sylvie Van Brabant of Productions du Rapide-Blanc and the NFB’s Colette Loumède, received the award for Best Feature Documentary. The film carefully and sympathetically chronicles the remarkable creative journey of animator Martine Chartrand throughout her 10-year odyssey of making her latest film, MacPherson.
Quick Facts
About Jutra
Jutra by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre (13 min)
Selected for the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in 2014
Selected to screen in international competition (short films) at RIDM 2014
Best Short Documentary at the 2015 Canadian Screen Awards
• Jutra is an ingenious portrait of the great Quebec filmmaker Claude Jutra, director of Mon oncle Antoine. Seen here in dialogue with himself at different stages of his life, he becomes the spirited narrator of his own biography.
• Animated sequences, clips from home movies, interviews and well-known works by the filmmaker blend and overlap to tell the story of a life devoted to creation. Jutra is at once a tribute, a love song to filmmaking and the retelling of the tragedy of a brilliant artist who died too young.
• Jutra is produced by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre (MJSTP Films) in co-production with the NFB (Marc Bertrand). The executive producer for the NFB is René Chénier.
o About Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre
Born in Murdochville, Quebec, in 1978, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre graduated from Concordia University and founded her independent production company MJSTP Films in 2004. Over the years, she has developed a cohesive body of work that sits at the crossroads of animation and documentary. Many of her films, notably Post-Partum, Passages, McLaren’s Negatives and Le projet Sapporo, have won awards. Jutra marks her first co-production with the NFB. Her films highlight two major themes: motherhood, which she tackles in Post Partum (2004, six awards), Passages (2008, six awards), and Femelles (2012); and artistic creation, which she examines in McLaren’s Negatives (2006, more than 20 awards), Le projet Sapporo (2009), Jutra (2014) and Flocons (2014). Taking a road rarely travelled by previous generations of documentarians and animators, Saint-Pierre’s work contributes to the development of animated documentary. MJSTP Films also produced Co Hoedeman’s short film La bille bleue (2014). Jutra is the company’s first co-production with the NFB.
About Finding Macpherson
Finding Macpherson by Serge Giguère (77 min)
World premiere at the 2014 International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA)
• Born of a friendship between Félix Leclerc and Frank Randolph Macpherson—a Jamaican immigrant who arrived in Quebec in 1917—Leclerc’s song “MacPherson” was a source of inspiration for director Martine Chartrand. Her ensuing film, MacPherson, is an under-the-camera animation composed of paintings on glass.
• The film was made over a 10-year period as Chartrand researched Macpherson’s past and reconsidered her own.
• Finding Macpherson was co-produced with Nicole Hubert and Sylvie Van Brabant of Productions du Rapide-Blanc and the NFB’s Colette Loumède.
o About Serge Giguère
Serge Giguère first gained recognition as a cameraman, and in 1984 he formed Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc with Sylvie Van Brabant. The company produced a number of his films, including Driven by Dreams (2007 Jutra for best documentary), Oscar Thiffault and King of Drums (winner of a Gemini Award). In 2012, he directed Le Nord au coeur, a moving introduction to the life and work of geographer and linguist Louis-Edmond Hamelin. Finding Macpherson is Giguère’s 13th film.
MJSTP Films: mjstpfilms.com
Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc: http://www.rapideblanc.ca/
Online Screening Room: NFB.ca
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Twitter: twitter.com/thenfb
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Nadine Viau
Publicist, NFB
Tel: 514-496-4486
Cell: 514-458-9745
E-mail: n.viau@onf.ca
Lily Robert
Director, Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs
Tel.: 514-283-3838
Cell: 514-296-8261
E-mail: l.robert@nfb.ca
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) creates groundbreaking interactive works, social-issue documentaries and auteur animation. The NFB has produced over 13,000 productions and won over 5,000 awards, including 14 Canadian Screen Awards, 8 Webbys, 12 Oscars and more than 90 Genies. To access acclaimed NFB content, visit NFB.ca or download its apps for smartphones, tablets and connected TV.
