Archipelago (French: Archipel) is a Canadian animated documentary film, directed by Félix Dufour-Laperrière and released in 2021.[1] A poetic essay film that blends diverse styles of animation, the film is a psychogeographic meditation on the islands in the St. Lawrence River,[2] forming a metaphor for Quebec's status as an "uncertain country" defined by the tensions between its status as a province of Canada and the Québécois people's conception of themselves as a distinct nation.[3]
| Archipelago | |
|---|---|
| French | Archipel |
| Directed by | Félix Dufour-Laperrière |
| Written by | Félix Dufour-Laperrière |
| Produced by | Félix Dufour-Laperrière Nicolas Dufour-Laperrière |
| Narrated by | Florence Blain Mbaye Mattis Savard-Verhoeven |
| Edited by | Félix Dufour-Laperrière |
| Music by | Stéphane Lafleur Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux |
Production company | L'Embuscade Films |
| Distributed by | La Distributrices de Films Miyu Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 72 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Languages | French Innu-aimun |
The film is narrated principally by Florence Blain Mbaye and Mattis Savard-Verhoeven, with a shorter narration by Joséphine Bacon of one of her own poems in Innu-aimun.[1] The animation team included Malcolm Sutherland, Philip Lockerby, Jens Hahn, and Eva Cvijanović.[3]
The film premiered in February 2021 at the International Film Festival Rotterdam,[4] and had its Canadian premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in April.[5] It was released commercially on October 19.[6]
The film won a jury prize at the 2021 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.[7]
It received four Prix Iris nominations at the 24th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2022, for Best Documentary Film, Best Editing in a Documentary (Dufour-Laperrière), Best Sound in a Documentary (Olivier Calvert) and Best Original Music in a Documentary (Stéphane Lafleur, Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux).[8]
It was named the winner of the Prix Luc-Perreault from the Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma at the 2022 Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma.[9]