Quest for Fire
The art of editing in at the heart filmmaking, and Quebecer Yves Langlois was an illustrious representative, through his many collaborations with Carle, Fournier, Chabrol, and Cantin. For this tribute, we present one of his emblematic editing works, for a cult film from Jean-Jacques Annaud.
Winner of the Genie Award for Best Editing for Yves Langlois in 1983
Winner of the César Award for Best Film in 1982
80,000 years ago. The Neanderthal Age was drawing to an end. Homo sapiens began to dominate the earth. The Ulam, a tribe of Homo sapiens, possessed fire, but did not have the ability to make it. Attacked by a Neanderthal tribe, the Wagabous, the Ulam are forced to flee, and their precious fire goes out. Three tribesmen then begin a quest for fire, a search through dangerous territory, which results in their meeting with a young girl from a more evolved tribe... and fire...
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Jean-Jacques Annaud is a French film director, producer, and screenwriter. He started his career directing commercials for television and movie theatres. In 1973, one of his commercials, Crackers Belin, won the Palme d'or at Cannes’ International Advertising Festival. After meeting François Truffaut, who admired his mini-comedies and editing style, Truffaut put him in touch with producer Claude Berri. This led to Annaud directing his first feature film, Black and White in Color (1976). Despite being a commercial failure in France, the film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film the following year and was subsequently re-released in France under the new title. Annaud then directed the film Hothead (1979), written by Francis Veber and starring Patrick Dewaere. He went on to tackle ambitious and expensive projects such as Quest for Fire (1981) and The Bear (1988), for which he received the César Award for Best Director. He also demonstrated a strong technical expertise by adapting Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (1986) and Marguerite Duras's The Lover (1992). Known for being a perfectionist, Annaud personally oversees every stage of his films' production. He enjoys visiting exotic, distant, and secret locations to offer audiences a sense of escapism that can only be found in cinema.
