We are proud to introduce Woolf + Lapin’s new talent—trailblazing filmmaker Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre. She’s been invited to be part of the jury for the 09 edition of the Ottawa International Film Festival, the biggest fest of its kind in North America.
Joined on the phone this morning, she said she was anxious to get together with her fellow jurors and see the buzz and talent in the animation world right now. She’s also presenting her very personal Passages in the Québec My Love series, right along Patrick Boivin’s Indochine videoclip Playboy.
Marie-Josée exploded on the scene a few years back with her remarkable film, McLaren’s Negatives (2006), combining documentary, drama and animation like few filmmakers before her.
The film got noticed fast and established her as an emerging talent, some even comparing her to Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi. McLaren’s Negatives has won more than twenty awards the world over. And one award she cherishes and keeps on her desk is the Jutra she won for the film.
She has since directed the non-animated film Post-Partum, a very personal film about womanhood and birth, both are recurring themes in her growing body of work. She cites experimental filmmakers Leighton Pierce and Stan Brakhage as inspirations, and these of course are second only to, Mr Experiment himself, Norman McLaren.
Among her upcoming projects, Marie-Josée is writing a feature-length animation film on Claude Jutra and is in pre-production on Femelles, a very inventive take on working moms using her signature style as always.