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The Painting

2024 11 min
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Animated on the pinscreen, the film revisits the tragic fate of Queen Mariana of Austria and her 1652 portrait by Velázquez.

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The Painting

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A short film made using pinscreen animation, The Painting explores the 1652 portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria by Velázquez. Michèle Lemieux demonstrates incredible mastery of the pinscreen, playing with shadow and light to evoke the tragic fate of Mariana, who was married to her uncle at the age of 14. Both painful and tender, this experimental work is a poem of a film: a meditation on the brutality of institutionalized incest and art’s power to capture the soul.

History Visual Arts Women All subjects
  • writing
    Michèle Lemieux
  • animation
    Michèle Lemieux
  • direction
    Michèle Lemieux
  • production
    Christine Noël
    Julie Roy
  • editing
    Annie Jean
  • sound designer
    Catherine Van Der Donckt
  • original music
    Robert Marcel Lepage
  • musical adaptation
    Robert Marcel Lepage
  • sound design consultant
    Benoît Dame
  • vocal soloist
    Bronwyn Thies-Thompson
  • voice
    Annie Jean
  • musician
    Kerry Bursey
    Sheila Hannigan
    Pierre-Yves Martel
    François Pilon
  • sound recording
    Geoffrey Mitchell
  • re-recording mixer
    Jean-Paul Vialard
  • additional animation sequences
    Nicolas Liguori
  • graphic designer
    Réjean Myette
  • infographics
    Pascal Huynh
    Alexandre Morin
  • translation
    Helge Dascher
  • production assistant
    Pierre M. Trudeau
  • art history consultant
    Alexandre Grégoire
  • online editing
    Serge Verreault
  • technical coordinator
    Lyne Lapointe
    Jean-François Laprise
    Mira Mailhot
    Esther Viragh
  • technical director
    Pierre Plouffe
    Éric Pouliot
  • technical specialist - animation
    Yannick Grandmont
  • studio coordinator
    Michèle Labelle
    Rose Mercier-Marcotte
    Laetitia Seguin
  • administrator
    Karine Desmeules
    Diane Régimbald
  • senior production coordinator
    Josiane Bernardin
    Camila Blos
    Nellie Carrier
  • legal counsel
    Christian Pitchen
  • rights clearance research
    Sylvia Mezei
  • marketing
    Geneviève Bérard
  • publicist
    Nadine Viau
  • line production
    Mylène Augustin
    Mélanie Boudreau Blanchard
    Anne-Marie Bousquet

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