The Canadian Culture through Films class visit started with a history of the Cinémathèque Québécoise. Founded in 1963 by a group of impassioned filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts, the mission of Cinémathèque québécoise is to preserve and document film and television heritage in order to make it available to an ever-growing and diversified public.
Its expertise in Quebec and Canadian cinema and international animated film is universally recognized. The Cinémathèque’s first mandate is to preserve film and television productions. However, collections of all natures have been assembled since its creation. They group together more than 35,000 films from all eras and countries, 25,000 television programmes, 28,000 posters, 600,000 photos, 2,000 pieces of historical equipment, 15,000 scripts and production documents, 45,000 books, 3,000 magazine titles and thousands of dossiers on a variety of subject, as well as objects, props and costumes.
The students enjoyed Do Not Adjust Your Set!, an exhibition of vintage television sets, North America’s largest collection of TV sets. We then took part in a guided tour of the Médiathèque Guy-L.-Coté. This documentation centre of the Cinémathèque Québécoise was named after one of its founders. The personal archives of Guy L. Coté are the heart of the mediatheque collections.
The next part of the visit consisted of a personalized guided tour of the permanent exhibition: Forms in Movement, Perspectives on Animation. Paying homage to famous creators in animation, along with exhibiting historical drawings, puppets and devices, the exhibition serves as an initiation to the principles of creating movement image by image. It remembers the significant characters of animation art, and it reveals the aesthetics and techniques proper to animation. An animated exhibition for an animated art form, this exhibit was a big hit with the students!
We ended our visit in the Fernand-Seguin Theatre, and were treated to a private screening consisting of animated short films from Canada and around the world. These unique films kept the students entertained and intrigued!