Bestiaire

Canada, France

2012

72 Min

Color

1.78:1

None

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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PROD Sylvain Corbeil, Denis Côté

SOUND Frédéric Cloutier

Sundance (New Frontier), Berlinale (Forum), BAFICI (Cine del futuro)

Synopsis

A popular sensation in medieval Europe, bestiaries were catalogs of beasts featuring exotic animal illustrations, zoological wisdom, and ancient legends. Denis Côté’s startling Bestiaire unfolds like a filmic picture book where both humans and animals are on display. As we observe them, they also observe us and one another, invoking the Hindu idea of darshan: a mutual beholding that initiates a shift in consciousness.

Fascinating, beguiling creatures like buffalo, hyenas, zookeepers, zebras, taxidermists, rhinos, and ostriches silently inhabit uncluttered, beautifully composed frames of a locked-off camera, conducting curious affairs in holding pens and fields. Their unself-consciousness before the camera’s eye renders them equally objectified. Whether we anthropomorphize, poeticize, abstract, or judge them is up to us. Côté invites his audience to reflect on control and power as lions rattle cages, a taxidermist recreates a duck, and artists copy a stuffed deer. Using the film form to challenge the very notion of representation, Bestiaire is an elegant, bewitching meditation on the nature of sentience and the boundaries between nature and “civilization.” –Sundance Film Festival

Director

Denis Côté

Denis Côté (November 16, 1973 in Perth-Andover, New Brunswick in Canada) is a filmmaker and producer in Quebec, home Brayonne. Independent filmmaker, he is often considered one of the leaders of the new Quebec cinema, terms for his part he denies.

Cinephile, he studied cinema at Ahuntsic College in Montreal and founded nihilproductions (not to be confused with Aes-Nihil Productions) around 1994. Very active, he turns fifteen short films, including Kosovolove (2000) and La sphatte (2003). Meanwhile, he is a journalist in radio theater, cinema desk editor for the weekly Montreal cultural ICI from 1999 to 2005 and vice president of the Quebec Association of Film Critics (AQCC).

In 2005, his first feature, Drifting States, won the Golden Leopard (video) at the Locarno International Film Festival and the Grand Prix Indie Vision International Festival Jeonju, Korea. In November 2007, the film is one of ten selected by the Cahiers du Cinema in programming A Weekend of unpublished… read more

Denis Côté (November 16, 1973 in Perth-Andover, New Brunswick in Canada) is a filmmaker and producer in Quebec, home Brayonne. Independent filmmaker, he is often considered one of the leaders of the new Quebec cinema, terms for his part he denies.

Cinephile, he studied cinema at Ahuntsic College in Montreal and founded nihilproductions (not to be confused with Aes-Nihil Productions) around 1994. Very active, he turns fifteen short films, including Kosovolove (2000) and La sphatte (2003). Meanwhile, he is a journalist in radio theater, cinema desk editor for the weekly Montreal cultural ICI from 1999 to 2005 and vice president of the Quebec Association of Film Critics (AQCC).

In 2005, his first feature, Drifting States, won the Golden Leopard (video) at the Locarno International Film Festival and the Grand Prix Indie Vision International Festival Jeonju, Korea. In November 2007, the film is one of ten selected by the Cahiers du Cinema in programming A Weekend of unpublished organized by the journal.

Shot in Bulgarian language, Our Private Lives (2007) has toured the international festival circuit.

His third feature film, All that She Wants, won the Award for Best Director at the 61st Locarno Film Festival and Best Canadian Film at the International Francophone Film Festival in Acadie. Jean-Michel Frodon, then editor of Les Cahiers du Cinéma, choose the movie as one of his 10 choices for Best movies of 2008.

In October 2008, his work is the subject of a retrospective at the Cinémathèque québécoise.

Born of an artist residency, Carcasses was presented to the prestigious Cannes Film Festival at the Directors’ Fortnight in May 2009. Presented at the Toronto International Film Festival, he was part of Canada’s Top Ten.

FTA in May 2010, Côté will be responsible for achieving the video of the play directed by Ash Jeremiah Niel (from Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi).

In 2010, the short film The enemy lines (43 min.) was a part of the Jeonju Digital Project Jeonju International Film Festival (Korea) where he premiered mondiale.
In August 2010, his new feature film Curling is presented in official competition at the Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland). He won the award for directing, in addition to the Leopard for Best Actor goes to Emmanuel Bilodeau.

In late October, early November 2010, the Viennale presented a retrospective of his work. In addition to his own films, Denis Côté Product Rafael Ouellet Cedar examined in 2007. —Wikipedia

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