Pierre Perrault

From the gardens of Versailles to the Île-aux-Coudres, this documentary feature tells the story of Pierre Perrault's exceptional cinematic adventure. While simultaneously painting a portrait of the poet-filmmaker, the film contains a critical analysis of his work. To allow us to reflect on cinema and on man even further, an image hunter is himself hunted down to reveal his certainties and questions.

No synopsis available yet.

An anthology of sequences from the best films that the National Film Board of Canada produced since its beginnings. Divided by themes and presented by a trio of actors-signers (including Carle's wife Chloé Sainte-Marie) who sings the same song in between the movie excerpts. This movie celebrated the anniversary of the National Film Board in 1985.

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A look at November 15, 1976, the date the Parti Québécois seized power in the provincial elections, a victory that gave rise to an unprecedented outburst of joy at the Center Paul-Sauvé, a place where PQ sympathizers gathered.

A documentary film about a group of hunters who gather annually to hunt moose near Maniwaki, Quebec.

The people of Unamenshipu (La Romaine), an Innu community in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, are seen but not heard in this richly detailed documentary about the rituals surrounding an Innu caribou hunt. Released in 1960, it’s one of 13 titles in Au Pays de Neufve-France, a series of poetic documentary shorts about life along the St. Lawrence River. Off-camera narration, written by Pierre Perrault, frames the Innu participants through an ethnographic lens. Co-directed by René Bonnière and Perrault, a founding figure of Quebec’s direct cinema movement.

The people of Unamenshipu (La Romaine), an Innu community in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, are seen but not heard in this richly detailed documentary about the rituals surrounding an Innu caribou hunt. Released in 1960, it’s one of 13 titles in Au Pays de Neufve-France, a series of poetic documentary shorts about life along the St. Lawrence River. Off-camera narration, written by Pierre Perrault, frames the Innu participants through an ethnographic lens. Co-directed by René Bonnière and Perrault, a founding figure of Quebec’s direct cinema movement.

When Cartier wintered at Cap Rouge near Québec City in 1641, he claimed to have detected diamonds in the surrounding hills. Was he so very wrong? Three centuries later, 15,000 men have come to excavate the iron mountains of the Canadian tundra where the rust of those diamonds still sparkles.

Did Cartier dream of making a country from this land of a million birds? In his records of his exploration he certainly marvelled at seeing the great auks that have since disappeared from Isle aux Ouaiseaulx, the razor-bills and gannets that are gone from Blanc-Sablon, and the kittiwakes from Anticosti, all the winged creatures of all the islands which he described as being "as full of birds as a meadow is of grass". And that's not even counting the countless snow geese.

Did Cartier dream of making a country from this land of a million birds? In his records of his exploration he certainly marvelled at seeing the great auks that have since disappeared from Isle aux Ouaiseaulx, the razor-bills and gannets that are gone from Blanc-Sablon, and the kittiwakes from Anticosti, all the winged creatures of all the islands which he described as being "as full of birds as a meadow is of grass". And that's not even counting the countless snow geese.

On the North Shore of the St. Lawrence, the Otis family hunts for white whales and seals with rusty old rifles in hand-crafted boats. This is the traditional method of the Basque whalers who frequented the coast in the 16th century.

Not far from the North Pole on Ellesmere Island, for one hundred and twenty days, a watchful camera stalks a beast of fleece and hoof, the ancient musk-ox, in anticipation of the great bull's duel for dominance. By the light of late summer, in the hush of expectation of mating behaviour, battle is joined between the furry combatants.

Four years after Pour la suite du monde (1963), director Pierre Perrault asks Alexis Tremblay if he'll agree to travel with his wife Marie to the country of their ancestors, France. In a montage parallel, we follow them in France and listen to them talking to their friends about it.

Shows Tête-à-la-Baleine, Québec, a village with a double life--one on the North Shore mainland during winter months, the other on mossy islands of the Gulf to which the entire population moves for summer fishing.

Feature documentary on the agricultural Abitibi. This film is a real plea for the earth and for a more human kind of life in the face of a society that has become cold and insensitive.

The people of Ile-aux-Coudres talk of their fading tradition of constructing boats to ride the seas.

Three communities at the foot of the Charlevoix cliffs, Petite-Rivière, île-aux-Coudres and Les Éboulements, practise the myriad trades of the sea. Its men are sailors, stevedores, longshoremen for the coasting trade. In winter, they becomes caulkers, carpenters and timer-cutters who will build a new vessel if required, or repair, caulk and paint the over 150 wooden schooners that ply the St. Lawrence River.

This early work from Pierre Perrault, made in collaboration with René Bonnière, chronicles summer activities in the Innu communities of Unamenshipu (La Romaine) and Pakuashipi. Shot by noted cinematographer Michel Thomas-d’Hoste, it documents the construction of a traditional canoe, fishing along the Coucouchou River, a procession marking the Christian feast of the Assumption, and the departure of children for residential schools—an event presented here in an uncritical light. Perrault’s narration, delivered by an anonymous male voice, underscores the film’s outsider gaze on its Indigenous subjects. The film is from Au Pays de Neufve-France (1960), a series produced by Crawley Films, an important early Canadian producer of documentary films.

In the late 1960s, with the triumph of bilingualism and biculturalism, New Brunswick's Université de Moncton became the setting for the awakening of Acadian nationalism after centuries of defeatism and resignation. Although 40% of the province's population spoke French, they had been unable to make their voices heard. The movement started with students-sit-ins, demonstrations against Parliament, run-ins with the police - and soon spread to a majority of Acadians. The film captures the behind-the-scenes action and the students' determination to bring about change. An invaluable document of the rebirth of a people.

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Pierre Perrault takes Stéphane-Albert Boulais (from 'The Bright Beast', one of his films) to discover Saint-Malo and Jacques Cartier, in preparation for the 450th anniversary of the discovery of Canada (1534-1984). City tour with guide. Examination of Cartier's "Relations" and testimonies from the life of Falklands sailors, in an attempt to reconstruct his journey, his life, his time. Dialogue across the Atlantic between Saint-Malo and Île-aux-Coudres, the discoverer's mooring place. Who was Cartier? Who does it belong to? The discussion is open.

This documentary produced for TV follows a project consisting in remaking the journey of discoveries in the footsteps of Cartier's book. Sailors, some from Saint-Malo, others from the river, were entrusted with the care of navigation.

From the bottom of the Baie aux Feuilles, itself in the hollow of Ungava bay, at the summer solstice, a filmmaker is on the lookout. His camera scans the tundra, looking for a herd of muskox stubbornly refusing to be targeted - even by a documentary. A film which illustrates the thoughts of a humanist who is insatiably curious.

After 'A kingdom awaits you' and 'The return to the earth', the filmmaker Pierre Perrault concludes, with this documentary feature, his plea for the Abitibi region. The film gives the floor to Hauris Lalancette, farmer, colorful character, who has been fighting for almost half a century to save his kingdom in the Abitibi.

An incident from the early days of Québec's quiet revolution, tailor-made for the cartoonist. It is the story of a Montréal commuter train, a unilingual ticket collector and a bilingual passenger. The passenger appears on screen himself to describe his bid to have tickets requested in French as well as in English. What ensued, and how even the railway president became involved, is illustrated with wit and humor.

The building of a goélette, the wooden coastal freighter of the St. Lawrence River. Although ships of steel may replace these sturdy wooden vessels, the Jean Richard, shown in construction in this film, is still one ship built with all the old pride in craftsmanship.

From the lower St. Lawrence, a picture of whale hunting that looks more like a round-up, with a corral, whale-boys and all. In 1534, when he stopped at the island he named l'Île-aux-Coudres, Jacques Cartier saw how the Indians captured the little white beluga whales by setting a fence of saplings into off-shore mud. In the film, the islanders show that the old method still works, thanks to the trusting 'sea-pigs,' the same old tide, and a little magic.

Structured as a cinematic essay, "Un pays sans bon sens!" explores the emotional and political foundations of belonging to a nation. Moving between Quebec, France, and Western Canada, Pierre Perrault interrogates questions of cultural maturity, autonomy, and territory at a moment when French Canadians were reexamining their collective identity.