Ciné-Casteliers : Puppets on the Silver Screen

Adults and teens, 13 years +
In collaboration with Festival Stop Motion Montréal (FSMM)

 

Presented by

 

Tickets for Saturday, March 4, 2023, 4:00 p.m.

 

Short films without words or in French

Casteliers presents three new short films created by Montreal-based puppeteers and filmmakers. This program will also feature three stop motion animation shorts on the theme of puppetry and robotics, from Germany, France and Halifax, which were selected in collaboration with the Festival Stop Motion Montréal (FSMM).

Running time: 75 minutes
Techniques: filmed puppets and objects, stop motion animation

 

FILMS PRESENTED

 

Fenix – Olivia Faye Lathuillière (Montréal, Canada 2022)
19 min, without words
www.moviefenix.com
Manipulation of animated objects
Experimental fiction

A stunt woman finds herself trapped in a vicious circle of rebirths through her ashes. One evening during a routine ride in her sports car, an explosive accident turns her life upside down forever. Fenix takes you to a sexy, rock’n’roll, nocturnal world where lost souls break free and unearth forgotten treasures.

Metamorphosis, rebirth, and the passage of time are the founding themes in Fenix. The film’s development was established around three points of inspiration: near-death experience testimonials, vanitas paintings, and the mythical Phoenix. The film is a moving art installation set in a post-apocalyptic landscape of black sand dunes, with acting by Montréal dancer-choreographer Kim-Sanh Châu and animated object manipulation by Olivia Faye Lathuillière.

 

Hôtel Overlook — Olivier Ducas and Francis Monty (Montréal, Canada 2023) – PREVIEW
A Théâtre de la Pire Espèce production
15 min, in French
pire-espece.com
Paper theatre

Within the walls of a hotel reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a character wanders, restless. We discover that he has double or even triple identities. He is followed by his shadow and preceded by himself. In constant doubt. From one paper theatre set to the next, doors, hallways and elevators appear, turning the hotel into a veritable labyrinth. Sometimes two different locations merge in the frame and open a gap in reality of quantum proportions. Does the world really correspond to what we see? To what we think of it? A detail in the carpet pattern challenges our certainties.

Hôtel Overlook is a short film in which reality is distorted. It relies on a scenic device that combines paper theatre and cameras. The full-view manipulation gives filmgoers the opportunity to navigate between the secretive process of creating images and the story unfolding before their eyes. Both a traditional and popular technique, paper theatre lies at the crossroads of puppetry and animated film. On a modest scale, it invokes the mechanical magic of the great baroque theatres.

 

Perséphone – Émilie Racine (Montréal, Canada 2023) – PREVIEW
A Territoire 80 and Création Vivante coproduction
15 min, without words
territoire80.ca/persephone
Mixed techniques
Experimental

All at once “maiden” and “Queen of the underworld”, fertile spring and sterile winter, the Greek myth of Persephone addresses a feminine principle that oversees creation, fertility, and death.

Created as a palimpsest between mythical references and personal mythology, between the cycle of the seasons and bodily transformations, this short film traces the trajectory of a feminine quest for identity by exploring transmission between mother and daughter.

Perséphone is at the crossroads of theatre, visual arts, and experimental cinema. Performers, puppets, scale models, masks and matter are animated by alternating between live motion and stop motion techniques.

 

DataMine — Tim Tracy (Halifax, Canada 2016)
5 min, without words
www.timtraceyanimation.com
Stop motion puppets and objects
Experimental story — Postapocalyptic science fiction

A stop-motion indictment of surveillance society—animated by hand with light painting, creating surreal imagery without the use of CGI. In the world of DataMine, the oblivious masses are catalogued and scrutinized. As the operation spirals out of control, one of the Scrutinizers is forced to make a choice.

 

Pandora – Matthias Lerch (Allemagne 2020)
7 min, without words
www.stoptrik.com
Stop motion puppets and objects
Experimental — Cabinet of curiosities

Pandora interprets the corresponding myth and tells the story of a manipulated character that frees herself from her predestination.

 

Un Cœur d’or / Heart of Gold – Simon Filliot (France 2020)
12 min 45 sec, without words
Prix du public 2020 — Festival Stop Motion Montréal (FSMM)
www.simonfilliot.fr
Stop motion puppets
Story — Drama

For the sake of her son, a poor young mother is forced to sell her organs to a sick old woman. Flesh for gold. Little by little, necessity gives way to the lure of the gain… By selling her body, she alienates her entire identity.

 

Photos

Photos: DataMine, Fenix, Pandora, Hôtel Overlook, Heart of Gold, Perséphone and Festival Stop Motion Montréal