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Directors (1788)
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Patrick Bouchard (5)

Patrick Bouchard

Patrick Bouchard

Born in Quebec City in 1974 and raised in Saguenay, Quebec, Patrick Bouchard earned an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, where he directed his first stop-motion puppet film, Jean Leviériste (1998), as part of his degree. His first professional film, The Brainwashers (2002), a comic but chilling look at a musician tormented by his overactive imagination, won a Jutra Award for best animated short. Dehors novembre (2005), based on a song by the Quebec rock group Les Colocs, also received a Jutra and was screened in competition at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Bouchard followed up with his third stop-motion puppet film, Subservience (2007), which depicts a world on the verge of collapse thanks to its callous bourgeoisie and submissive servants. In 2007, at the Off-Courts Festival in Trouville, France, he made Talon d’argile, a very short film with constantly mutating clay figures, in just 24 hours. This experiment inspired Bydlo (2012), which was selected to screen at both TIFF and Annecy and went on to win Bouchard’s third Jutra in 2013. The film received awards at several other film festivals, notably the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, where it won the award for best animated film, and the Fantasia International Film Festival, where it won the Special Award for Technical Achievement. Le sujet is his fifth film with the NFB.

  • The Brainwashers
    The Brainwashers
    Patrick Bouchard 2002 12 min
    In this animated short, two chimney sweepers clear all the memories from their victim's brain in a quest to determine what goes on in a man's head. A chilling film filled with fearsome puppets inhabiting a world of strange objects.
  • Bydlo
    Bydlo
    Patrick Bouchard 2012 8 min
    An allegory of mankind heading for disaster, this animated short is a tragic vision inspired by the 4th movement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Drawing on the composer’s brilliant ability to evoke work and labour in his music, animator Patrick Bouchard brings earth to life through animated clay sculptures, creating a tactile nightmare in which man is his own slave driver.
  • Subservience
    Subservience
    Patrick Bouchard 2007 8 min
    In this animated short, the selfishness of the bourgeoisie and the oppression and exploitation of its servants take centre stage as a puppet show presents the tragicomedy of a society in its death throes.
  • Dehors novembre
    Dehors novembre
    Patrick Bouchard 2005 6 min
    This animated short evokes the tragic death of Dédé Fortin, frontman, and vocalist of the Québécois band Les Colocs. To the soundtrack of “Dehors novembre,” one of the band’s songs, animator Patrick Bouchard weaves of dark tale of death and ruin, as they unfold in the dark of night, in November, the Month of the Dead. Not for children.
  • The Subject
    The Subject
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    Patrick Bouchard 2018 10 min
    An animator dissects his own body, extracting memories, emotions and fears that will nurture his work. As he cuts into his skin with a scalpel, various symbolic objects recalling his past emerge. Reaching the heart after cracking his ribs, he succeeds in identifying the burden he’s been dying to cast off.

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