Auteur cinema will be honoured this spring in Percé. Exceptionally, LA NUIT DU CINÉMA À PERCÉ will take place Saturday March 27, from 7 p.m. until early in the morning, against the natural backdrop of the Parc national de l’Île-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé in Gaspésie. The third edition of the free cinematic event, complete with mulled wine and festive entertainment, will take place in two unique projection sites: the historical Charles-Robin area by the beach and the Suzanne Guité cultural space by the village wharf.

This emotion-filled, outdoor show will include a tribute to the Québécois cinematographer Gilles Carle, a pioneer of Québec’s fiction cinema who passed last November. The event will begin with the screening of La vraie nature de Bernadette, the director’s cult film that revealed Québec’s own actress Micheline Lanctôt and was entered in the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. In addition to this hallmark of Québécois cinema, LA NUIT DU CINÉMA will also present the first screening of hitherto unreleased images from the short film Percé on the Rocks, an innovative 1964 documentary produced by Carle in Percé. For this film, the director drew inspiration from tourism in the Percé village, among the most popular holiday destination of the province. Cuts that were not used in the final version will be presented for the first time in Québec. The films will be projected on the wall of historical building La Neigère, a former ice warehouse used by the cod fishing industry and located at the base of the famous rock.

Throughout the night, the event will also feature 32 contemporary short films produced by the most talented filmmakers of the hour from here and abroad. These artists broach current issues and themes, often through the use of novel cinematic forms. For many of these films, LA NUIT DU CINÉMA will constitute their first international, North American, or Gaspesian screening. Many of them have won awards at several international film festivals or participated in the Oscar, Jutra, or Génie award races. Films from young Gaspesian filmmakers will also be among the evening’s lineup.

Oscard-winning animation films in Percé

Not to be missed at this event is Logorama, a French animation masterpiece that won this year’s Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. This critically acclaimed work by filmmakers François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain was introduced at the Critic’s Week of the Cannes Festival. It was broadcast a few months later on the Canal+ television channel in France, later screened at the Museum of Modern Art of New York, and will now be presented to cinema enthusiasts in Percé. Designed as a futuristic allegory, the film presents a universe constructed from logos. The audience is treated to a wild chase through a delirious Los Angeles in which every square centimeter has been claimed by a commercial brand.

Hailing from Japan is another 2009 Oscar-winning animation masterpiece, The House of Small Cubes. This short animated film by director Kunio Kato tells the dazzling and moving tale of an old man living in a submerged city.

A short film by Jean-Marc Vallée, director of Crazy, in Percé

One of the first short films of Québécois director Jean-Marc Vallée, Les mots magiques (1998), will be honored in Percé. Presented for the first time to Gaspesian film enthusiasts, this film addresses the difficult father-son relationship with an uncanny sensitivity. It also features one of the last on-screen appearances of the late Robert Gravel, a great Québécois actor deceased in 1996. Les mots magiques won the Grand Prize at the prestigious Festival du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand in France, a Jutra Award, and a Jury Award at the Aspen Shortfest in Colorado.

Gaspesian cinema at the center stage

Percé invites film enthusiasts to the world premiere of Gaspésie, produced by filmmaker Guillaume Lévesque and photographer Christian Lamontagne, two Gaspesian directors of promising talent and visionary sensitivity. In a series of striking images of Gaspésie, throbbing with avant-garde electronic music, the film takes us through a valley choked by waste from an old mine into a forest disappearing at the breakneck speed of industry, and along the frantic paths of passing tourists… all in a short Gaspesian summer. In the way of a diary entry, the part of Gaspésie is played by Time, an actor whose presence is felt throughout her territory. This activist work will be projected continuously at an installation in the Suzanne Guité cultural space located near the Percé wharf.

L’Île, by Alexandra Guité

On the documentary front, Percé-born Gaspesian director Alexandra Guité will present for the first time in her native village the documentary L’Île, produced in the summer of 2009 for the celebration of the 475th anniversary of Jacques Cartier’s arrival in Gaspé. Presented last February at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal, this short film tells the gripping story of a 91-year-old citizen, Louis Brochet, owner of the Rainbow motels in Percé and considered one of the last expropriated residents of Bonaventure Island in Gaspésie.

Fiction in Gaspésie

Among LA NUIT DU CINÉMA’s fictional offerings is the short film HD by Gaspé-born director Jean-François Aubé. The film tells the story of a young Montrealer who, moved by a purely humanitarian intent, travels to a Gaspesian village in the hope of providing it with high-speed Internet. He is surprised to learn that a concerned group of citizens by the name of HD protests the arrival of broadband in the village.

Kino 132 Gaspesian experiments

The Kino 132 collective is the Gaspesian cell of the global Kino movement that began in Montreal in 1999 with a simple wager among friends: to produce an original short film every month before the year 2000. The movement has been growing ever since. For the first time, LA NUIT DU CINÉMA joins the Gaspesian collective Kino 132 for a special program drawn from the latest works of the Baie-des-Chaleurs Kino group, including those of Julien Leblanc, Mathieu Boudreault, Éric Proulx, Sébastien Dubois, and David Arsenault.

Promising young auteur cinema, from Claude Jutra to Denis Côté

Many short films produced by young filmmakers of undisputable talent will be shown throughout the course of LA NUIT DU CINÉMA. This program will begin with the screening of Mouvement Perpétuel (1949), the first short film from Claude Jutra, then aged 19. Through this premonitory film, the director of the famous Mon oncle Antoine reveals himself in all his talent as a contemporary Québécois filmmaker. Danish short film Dennis, by director Mads Matthiesen, will also be presented. The film tells the story of an introverted bodybuilder who still lives with his mother in the suburbs of Copenhagen. One evening, he invites a young woman on a date, causing much filial turmoil. This film won the Best Short Film award at the Berlin Short Film Festival. Also screening in Percé will be Maïté, a lesser-known Québécois short film by the prolific filmmaker Denis Côté (Elle veut le chaos), who is now putting the finishing touches on his latest feature film Curling. The short film, both very personal and destabilizing, narrates the improbable escape of a 17-year old runaway over a heavy metal soundtrack.

Karl Lemieux, whose cinematographic work is currently presented at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, is the co-founder of the Montreal collective Double Negative dedicated to experimental cinema. Lemieux will present his film Passage, winner of several awards including the best Québécois short film (2008). This film tells the story of two young women and two boys who stop at a highway motel. A lyrical cinema, all in whites and blacks, with the inspired music of Québécois composer Dave Bryant.

On the fictional side, filmmaker Nicolas Roy will present Jour sans joie. This magnificently set road movie, at once lyrical and dramatic, has just won many awards during the 10th edition of Montreal short film gala Prends ça court! LA NUIT DU CINÉMA will also showcase another film of great artistic strength by Guy Édoin, La battue, which explores the universe of women bending womanhood in hunting garments. This film was named one of the ten best Canadian short films by the Toronto International Film Festival. Then, another film with a contemporary sensitivity, La vie commence, by director and actor Émile Proux-Cloutier, will take over the screen. This film, presented at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, shows the twenty-four hours that will change the life of a teenager and his elder brother.

The evening will continue with the screening of films from two young animation filmmakers. First M, the most recent work of Félix Dufour-Laperrière from Chicoutimi, will be shown to Percé enthusiasts. This film is animated from digitized, manipulated, and recombined pencil-and-paper sketches. Then, David Coquart-Dassaut’s short film Rains, intended as a pause in human movement, will be presented. The silent short won an award at the 13th REGARD short film festival in Saguenay. Also among the Percé selection will be the film Danse macabre, a motion picture concept from Québécois director Robert Lepage and produced by Montreal filmmaker Pedro Pires. The short, in the form of an art film, combines dance and cinema. It presents a cadaver rising in one final, macabre ballet. Shot in the chapel of an abandoned school, the sublime and mysterious images of the film are carried by the voice of the divine singer Maria Callas. To date, Danse macabre has collected over thirty international awards and was ranked among the best Canadian films of the year by the Toronto International Film Festival. It is also a nominee for the category of "Best Québécois short film of the year" at the upcoming Jutra Awards.

Screening of a documentary by Québécois filmmaker, poet, and playwright Pierre Perrault

LA NUIT DU CINÉMA will present for the first time in Gaspésie the work of Québécois master filmmaker Pierre Perrault. The short film Le beau plaisir, produced in 1968 in collaboration with filmmakers Michel Brault and Bertrand Gosselin, will be offered to the audience. This fascinating documentary on the beluga whale hunt in Île-aux-Coudres artfully shows the islanders setting their heart-shaped traps in muddy soils. This is direct cinema at its best, by one of the genre’s pioneers in Québec!

Une tente sur Mars in Percé

Une tente sur Mars, by Martin Bureau and Luc Renaud, is a fascinating documentary exploration of the concepts of territory and identity in the Québecois North. Shot in Schefferville, the film illustrates the parallel struggle of two people, Québécois and First Nations, all against a musical backdrop of electroacoustic music by Québécois composer Fred Fortin. Presented in many film festivals, and particularly successful in its aesthetics and social content, Une tente sur Mars is a nominee for the best Québécois documentary award at the upcoming Jutra ceremony, which will air on Radio-Canada Sunday, March 28.

Documentaries from Cape Breton and Newfoundland

On the broader Canadian horizon, the film The Trap by young filmmaker Lina Vecry will be presented at LA NUIT DU CINÉMA. This film, shot on Cape Breton Island, offers a philosophical point of view on the sensitive and respectful dialogue between Buddhist monks meditating at their Nova Scotia abbey as Acadian fishermen take to the sea to haul in their lobster traps. The short film, produced for the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada’s TREMPLIN contest for the discovery of young Canadian cinema talent, is a laureate of the Festival international du cinema francophone en Acadie. Also featured will be Vive la rose, an animated film inspired an Émile Benoît songdrawn from the traditional Francophone repertoire of Newfoundland. Produced by director Bruce Alcoc, the short documentary film is both a tragic love story and an ode to nature’s beauty, based equally on photography and cinema. It is a nominee for best short animated film at the Génie Awards taking place next April in Toronto.

Sights on animation filmmaker Ryan Larkin

Considered a rising star of the animation universe of Canada before collapsing into years marked by alcohol, drugs, and panhandling, filmmaker Ryan Larkin left us a psychedelic opus. He began his career at the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada in the 1960s under the guidance of world-renowned filmmaker Norman McLaren. His animated film Walking (1968), screening in Percé, was a 1968 Oscar contender.

Cinema against homophobia

The young filmmaker Pascal-Alex Vincent makes a killing in the fight against homophobia with his short fictional film En colo. The first North-American screening of the film in Percé takes us to summer camp, where two young boys, Mathieu and Maxime, exchange a troubling kiss in a game of “Truth or Dare”. From that moment, the teenagers who witnessed the scene begin to make more or less direct allusions to Maxime’s potential homosexuality. The film was produced for a national campaign against homophobia in France, “Le regard des autres”, under the guidance of French filmmaker André Téchiné (Les roseaux sauvages [1995], César for Best Film).

A home-grown comedy!

Québécois filmmaker Simon-Olivier Fecteau, former member of the comedy group Chick’n Swell, will present Le technicien, his most recent short film telling the humorous story of a technician who tries to repair the television of an old man distressed by the unhappy events he sees on the screen.

The event is free and open to all

Mulled wine, fire barrels, stargazing, and festive entertainment will also be featured in this third edition of LA NUIT DU CINÉMA À PERCÉ on Saturday March 27, presented by Les Percéides – Festival international de cinema et d’art de Percé.

Information : 418 782-1495
www.perceides.ca