animated short films Angakusajaujuq : The Shaman’s Apprenticeby Zacharias Kunuk, at Meneath : The Hidden Island of Ethicsby Terril Calder – two Canadian filmmakers of Aboriginal descent – won two of the five major prizes awarded to 20ay Summits of animated cinema, whose closing ceremony was held on Sunday at the Cinémathèque québécoise, in Montreal.
This two twenty-minute film was awarded by the Canadian Competition jury, comprised of artists Olivier Morin, Jean-Charles Mbotti Malolo, Shira Avni, Pixie Cram and Marya Zarif.
Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprenticedirected by Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk (winner of Caméra d’or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 for his feature film Atanarjuat), won the Grand Prix Guy-L. Sides for the best animated film.
This story inspired by the traditional role of the shaman in the myth of Innu, in which a grandmother and her grandson travel underground to rescue a sick hunter, was chosen. for his great visual, cultural and emotional richness; for its animation, its cinematography, its design, its lighting and its direction of surprising fluidity and beautywritten by the jury in a press release.
Premiered last year at the Annecy Animation Film Festival in France, Angakusajaujuq : The Shaman’s Apprentice won numerous national and international awards, including Best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF).
Meneath : The Hidden Island of Ethics, by Ontario-born Métis director Terril Calder, won the Special Jury Prize-École NAD-UQAC. This NFB production explores the contradictions between the seven deadly sins and the seven sacred teachings of Anishinaabe.
The jury was especially impressed with the graphic risk taking, the bold aesthetic as well as the complexity of the techniques, media and materials of this film made with frame-by-frame animation (stop-motion).
The Best Character Award goes to blind sculptor and iconoclast Louisiane Gervais, star of the film No titleby Alexandra Myotte, who created strange sensual sculptures that speak to us about ecology, sex diversity, the art market as an annoying rural lifemention of the jury.
Greenthe very first music video of Quebec folk rock band Harmonium, was awarded for its bold lyrical and its perfect balance between abstraction and figuration.
Produced by GSI Musique and designed by Marcella Grimaux, Gabriel Poirier-Galarneau and Vince Hurtu, the animated music video was produced in collaboration with the Orchester symphonique de Montréal, 46 years after the song was released.
Finally, the Award for Best Educational or Commission Film went to another NFB production, Magical caresses – Masturbation : the little story of a big tabooby Lori Malépart-Traversy. Because it is able to deliver through a few lines of soft, playful, open eroticism, which everyone will recognize, to be called a shovel in disbelief. Always magicjury explanation.
Source: Radio-Canada
