Date(s)

Friday,March 8, 20244 p.m.

Venue(s)

Paul-Gérin-Lajoie-d’Outremont High School Auditorium
475 Bloomfield Avenue
Outremont (Québec) H2V 1Y8
SEE MAP

Tickets

Single admission price: $15

TICKETS FOR MARCH 8 – 4 p.m.

Adult and teen audience, 13 years +

Casteliers presents an evening of puppetry cinema featuring original shorts filmed in stop-motion animation or directly with puppets, objects, and materials, as well as a documentary film on the creation of the show Iniskim.

 

Bon cinéma !

 

6 SHORT FILMS AND 1 DOCUMENTARY

 

 

Language: Without words, in French, or in English and Blackfoot with French subtitles
Running time: 90 minutes
Techniques: Filmed puppets and objects, stop-motion animation, and documentary

 

 

SYNOPSIS ET CREATORS

 

Jouer avec son corps, Joanie Fortin (Montréal, 2020)
8 min. 12 sec., original version in French

While playing outdoors, a child is caught by the wind and stripped of his coat. He must now face not only the loss of his windbreaker, but also a completely different disappearance, one that may be even more disconcerting: that of his body—a mass of invisibility hitherto concealed under his beloved coat. And so begins his quest for a new body. Jouer avec son corps is a fable about the acceptance of the body as a shifting, polymorphous entity.

Puppeteer, actor, dramaturge, and sound design consultant Joanie Fortin holds degrees in theatre studies and graduate studies in contemporary puppet theatre from the Université du Québec à Montréal. To perfect her practice, she has also completed internships with Marcelle Hudon and Puppets in Prague. Joanie has worked as a puppeteer with several companies, in particular the Théâtre de La Pire Espèce and Tortue Berlue. She is co-founder of the Les Tables Tournantes collective.

 

Lettre de l’asile, La Compagnie Mobile Home (Montréal, 2023)
4 min. 2 sec., original version in French
ciemobilehome.com

Based on the eponymous work by Lucien Suel, a contemporary French poet and writer, this letter highlights moments of suffering, but also of happiness in observing things that are usually imperceptible. Mobile Home wanted to convey the subtlety of sensations in the body, the painful and often enlightening examination of sensitivity in everyday life.

Founded by Lucas Jolly and Steeve Dumais, Mobile Home develops unconventional hybrid shows, much like installation, performance art and surrealist cabaret, both indoors and out. Borrowing from various disciplines, they work on the superimposition of genres and forms to reveal complex layers of humanity.

 

Scribouillis, Noémi Bélanger and Lisa Sfriso / L’os de bois (Laval, 2023) GRAND PREMIERE
12 min., original version in French
osdebois.com

Scribouillis is the film adaptation of Noémi Bélanger’s play of the same name. The work is a tribute to children’s imagination, to their ability to give life to the inanimate, just as Mimi knows how to give life to her drawing and a puppeteer gives life to her puppet. Scribouillis, the embodiment of Mimi’s scribble, is an imperfect creature whose story is, in essence, an ode to creation.

L’os de bois designs, produces and presents narrative and visual works through shows, exhibitions, events, and cultural mediation activities, giving pride of place to puppetry arts. L’os de bois holds values of accessibility and diversity, and reaches out to different audiences in performing arts venues, as well as in unconventional places..

 

Misophonia, The Stringpullers Puppet Company (États-Unis, 2022)
9 min., without words
stringpullers.com

A quiet bus ride turns into an aural nightmare for a book-reading commuter. With every stop the bus fills with people and sounds, becoming a chaotic cacophony joyful to everyone but her. Only when the bus reaches her seaside destination do we discover she is not the average commuter.

The Stringpullers are explorers of all forms of puppetry and object performance. We build puppets, teach construction and manipulation, provide puppeteers and puppeteer training, and make shows for the stage, street, and screen. The Stringpullers is Linda Wingerter and a rotating roster of artists from New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, with a studio in Ithaca, New York.

 

Je marche à côté / Walking Alongside, Claude Lapointe (Montréal, 2024) GRAND PREMIERE
9 min., French version presented at Casteliers

Based on the poem Companionship by Saint-Deny-Garneau.

Using the assorted objects scattered on the table she calls home, Longue, a rod and hand puppet with a lively imagination, leads us through various interpretations of Saint-Denys-Garneau’s poem “Companionship.” A poem that obsesses and transforms her.

 

Nos contes / Our tales, Flavia Hevia (Montréal, 2024) GRAND PREMIERE
4 min. 18 sec., original version in English and Spanish, with French subtitles
flavia.hevia

Nos Contes/Our Tales is a short film inspired by the vital testimonials and sensory memories that immigrant women retain from their homelands, and which are recreated in a non-linear form through stop-motion animation.

Flavia Hevia is a visual artist, puppeteer, and set and lighting designer for the theatre, and more recently the creator of short stop-motion films. Originally from Mexico, Flavia holds degrees from UQAM’s graduate program in contemporary puppet theatre and the National Theatre School of Canada’s lighting specialization program. Begun during two residencies in Edinburgh and Montreal, as part of Stop-Motion and the Stage, a Québec-United Kingdom cultural collaboration project, Nos contes / Our Tales then received support from the Canada Council for the Arts and Montréal Arts Interculturelles for its completion.

 

Iniskim: Return of the Buffalo, Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry / Necessary Journeys (Calgary, 2024 / World Premiere Feb. 23, 2024 at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival)
40 min., original version in English and Blackfoot, with French subtitles
Bande annonce
maskandpuppet.com

Iniskim: Return of the Buffalo is a cinematic wonder and an incredible opportunity to learn about Indigenous ways of knowing. We watch as a group of puppeteers are transformed by their experience of “being buffalo” at night under the stars. As Amethyst First Rider says to the puppeteers, “You are the buffalo. With each movement of your hands, each connection, each dream, you’re creating energy and they become a part of you.”

The Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry (CAMP) is dedicated to the forward momentum of theatre and visual art in Calgary and western Canada. CAMP provides two types of artistic experiences: educational and performative. The organization likes to operate in ways that draw people together, to enable any and all to take ownership in the artistic experience whether it be learning new ways to express themselves during a workshop, or when joining in the immersive qualities of the performances that we help create.

 

 

 

The show you had in mind is sold out? Try your luck at the door! Arrive early. If reserved tickets are cancelled at the last minute, we will gladly to put them up for sale. Credit card and Interac transfers only. No cash payments.

 

 

Photos

Jouer avec son corps | Lettre de l’asile | Scribouillis | Misophonia | Je marche à côté / Walk Alongside | Nos contes / Our tales | Iniskim