Sylvain L'Espérance
Born in Montreal in 1961, Sylvain L'Espérance studied visual arts and cinema. In over 30 years of practice, he has made thirteen films that combine direct cinema and experimental research in a poetic exploration of reality. The place of foreigners and marginalized communities in our world is at the heart of each of his films. Migrants, workers, craftsmen, sailors, fishermen, shepherds, the unemployed, the homeless - these are the common people who speak and act in his films. Through the street theater, singing and poetry they practice, his films reveal a political and free speech inhabited by a raw and indomitable force. His films have been shown in some twenty countries around the world. Intérieurs du delta won the Best Director Award at Florence's Festival dei Popoli (2010) and Sur le Rivage du monde the Grand Prize in the International Competition at Munich's DOK.fest (2013). Combat au bout de la nuit was presented in the Panorama section of the Berlinale (2017). Animal Macula won the Special Jury Prize in the National Feature Film Competition at RIDM 2021, received a Special Mention in the Night Award section of the Signes de nuit festival in Bangkok (2023), and the Grand Prize in the International Documentary Competition at the Signes de nuit festival in Paris, October 2023. It was also presented in the Front(s) populaire(s) section of the Cinéma du réel Festival in Paris in March 2023.
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Animal Macula
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Animal Macula
Subscription access
_Animal Macula_ plunges us into the heart of a sprawling and winding network where animals transform as they move from one sequence to another, all drawn from 125 years of cinema. An enigma is contained in each image where an animal appears, diffused in the signs that he sends us in silence. Through archaeological work and collage, it is to this enigma that the film seeks to approach. By lett...
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