The Experience of the Other
Animated shorts

In a world where we are constantly told about the importance of diversity, how do filmmakers address the issue of otherness? This programme of six animated films presented at the Canadian Cultural Centre by Marcel Jean, the artistic delegate of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival addresses the question of the Other in a variety of ways. 

Colonialism, immigration and post-colonialism are at the heart of these works. Between the assimilation experiments carried out in Charles Darwin’s time (Darwin’s Notebook) and the memories of a Japanese immigrant’s daughter in Canada (In the Shadow of the Pines), this programme offers different visions of a world where various cultures are brought together.

Presented at the end, Le Temple is inspired by a text by H.P. Lovecraft. Canadian filmmaker Alain Fournier raises the question of the representation of the Other as he recounts the strange incidents that occurred on a German submarine during the Second World War.

The session is presented by Marcel Jean, artistic delegate of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and director general of the Cinémathèque québécoise. A critic, teacher and producer, he is also the author of several books on Quebec cinema and animation.

In partnership with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and in collaboration with the Cinémathèque québécoise.

Programme: (duration 61 minutes)

• La saison des hibiscus by Éléonore Goldberg
  2020 / Canada / 10mn
  Zaire, January 1993. The family of Rachel, a young French girl of 8, lives in Kinshasa in a house overlooking the Congo River. When the military loot the city, Rachel’s family escapes their violence by taking refuge in the French embassy. In the discovery of bodies, of life and death, of sensuality and fragility, Rachel remembers.

• Darwin’s Notebook by Georges Schwizgebel
  2021 / Suisse / 9mn21
  The return to their country of three anglicized Indigenous or the beginnings of an encounter with the modern world that will destroy them.

• We Have One Heart by Katarzyna Warzecha
  2020 / Pologne / 12 mn
  When his mother dies, Adam finds his parents’ correspondence. A love story set in the 20th century; a divided world where the Iran-Iraq war marked the beginning of tragic conflicts in the Middle East. Mixing animation and ‘found footage’, the film plunges us into an odyssey full of twists and turns.

• Y’a bon by Marc Faye
  France / 2021/4mn23
  On February 23, 2005, the radio announces a bill on the benefits of French colonization. This announcement disturbs the daily life of Louise and her family. Her house turns out to be inhabited by strange presences.

• In the Shadow of the Pines by Anne Koizumi
  Canada / 2020 / 8mn
  Based on her childhood memories, Canadian filmmaker Anne Koizumi talks about her feelings about her father, a Japanese immigrant working as a caretaker at her daughter’s primary schools.
• Le Temple by Alain Fournier
  Canada / 2020 / 17 mn26
  The crew of a German u-boat on a mission in the North Atlantic witnesses strange phenomena on board. After an inexplicable explosion in the engine room, the submarine slowly sinks to the abyssal depths, while madness decimates the submariners.