From McLaren
to motherhood

>> Award-winning director Marie-Josée
Saint-Pierre is an ambitious upstart on
the animation scene

POSITIVE NEGATIVES: Saint-Pierre

by MALCOLM FRASER

Many a young film student has been inspired by the work of NFB animation pioneer Norman McLaren, but few have parlayed this inspiration into an award-winning film of their own. That takes the kind of gumption displayed by 29-year-old producer/director Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, whose short McLaren’s Negatives came out of left field to win last year’s Jutra award for best animated film.

Born in Gaspésie, Saint-Pierre grew up in the Quebec City area and studied advertising at CEGEP in Jonquières. Her final project was a 10-second animation, and a revelation: “I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do in life.’” Moving to Montreal at 19, she worked double shifts at an art gallery and a bank to save up tuition money, then got a BFA in animation and an MFA in film production, both from Concordia.

McLaren’s Negatives was laboriously put together over five years. “At the beginning, nobody wanted to give me money,” she recalls, “because McLaren’s a big name, a treasure, and I’m a nobody. I really had to fight for it to come together.” Although McLaren is a legend in animation circles, Saint-Pierre noticed that “it’s surprising, but the general public doesn’t know him, especially new generations. I think my point is if you watch the film, then you’ll wanna go and watch more of his films.”

The Jutra win was another surprise. “I never thought we’d get it, because the other films had five and six times the budget we have, and big teams behind them for distribution and promotion,” she says. In contrast, Saint-Pierre works with a two-person, part-time staff. “It’s not a big company. Maybe in 20 years,” she laughs.

With the impressive debut behind her, Saint-Pierre is now completing her next film, a 25-minute “animated documentary” entitled Passages. “Originally, the film was gonna be on motherhood, having a kid and how your life changes. But then I had a brush with Quebec’s incompetent health care system, so the film became more about the birth of my daughter and the traumatic birth experience we had.” The harrowing tale is told in an impressionistic style with beautifully simple black-and-white line drawings mixed with collage.

The film is scheduled for release next spring. “I don’t know if I’m gonna go to my film’s screenings, because it’s so personal,” she says. All the same, animation fans would be well advised to check it out, and keep an eye on future projects from this talented and ambitious young upstart.