Le fleuve aux grandes eaux
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Le fleuve aux grandes eaux |
| Country of production | Canada |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1993 |
| length | 24 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Frédéric Back |
| script | Frédéric Back Hubert Tison |
| production | Frédéric Back Hubert Tison for the National Film Board of Canada |
| music |
Denis L. Chartrand Normand Roger |
| camera | Jean Robillard |
| cut | Norbert Pickering |
Le fleuve aux grandes eaux , English title The Mighty River , is a Canadian animated short film directed by Frédéric Back from 1993.
action
A mighty river once flowed through Canada into the sea. The water was the habitat of countless living things. There were abundant fish stocks, whales and giant tortoises, and the banks were nesting grounds for birds, breeding grounds for seals and penguins. The natives named the river "Magtogoek", the first settlers called it St. Lawrence River . When Jacques Cartier discovered Canada, the first mass slaughter took place. As a result, the river's animal populations were decimated more and more systematically in order to get rich with the fur, whale oil and the teeth of walruses. Not only the animal world suffered from humans. The trees in the river area were also decimated in the course of building ships and paper mills.
If the river was able to recover again and again, the last 100 years have almost completely destroyed it today. The animal populations are highly endangered, the water along the big cities is polluted, the natural flow direction of the river is interrupted by straightening and sluices. While the people on the stock exchanges go headless with greed for profit and the sky turns brown with air pollution, it is time to listen to the call of the Magtogoek and to reconcile man and river.
production
For the development of Le fleuve aux grandes eaux , Frédéric Back traveled to Québec , Rimouski , Forillon and Havre-Saint-Pierre as well as by ship Blanc-Sablon . Back worked closely with biologists and historians to create the film and the narrative. The aim was to draw as authentic a picture of the river as possible and thus create a reliable source for students, teachers and the public. Back had already dealt with environmental issues with The Man Who Planted Trees . Biologist Claude Villeneuve wrote a book of the same name based on the film, which was illustrated by Back and published in 1995 by Les Éditions Québec-Amérique et la Société Radio-Canada.
Back animated the film on so-called "frosted cels ". H. Foils with a roughened surface, which are normally used in engineering. He had used this technique in previous films such as Tout-rien . In contrast to these, however, the foils have now been produced with a smoother surface, so that Back had greater difficulties with the animation process. The colors appeared less vivid and strong here.
Paul Hébert is the narrator of the French version and Donald Sutherland of the English version .
Awards
At the Festival d'Animation Annecy , Le fleuve aux grandes eaux received the Cristal d'Annecy as best short film in 1993 . At the Hiroshima International Animation Festival the following year, he was awarded the grand prize.
In 1993, Fréderic Back received the LAFCA Award for Best Animation from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards ; he also received the OIAF Award for best film (10-30 minutes) at the 1994 Ottawa International Animation Festival .
Le fleuve aux grandes eaux was in 1994 for an Oscar in the category " animated Best Short Film nomination," but could not free himself from Wallace & Gromit - The Wrong Trousers prevail.
Web links
- Le fleuve aux grandes eaux in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Le fleuve aux grandes eaux on bcdb.com