The Memories of Angels
To coincide with the exceptional circumstances of hosting the annual congress of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), we are offering a program highlighting the strengths of our collections and our mandate: animated film gems, world premiere commissioned works, newly restored features, documentaries devoted to heritage questions and the reuse of archives.
In the presence of the filmmaker, Luc Bourdon
Winner of the Grand Prix Focus - Cinémathèque québécoise, 2008 Festival du nouveau cinéma
This visual love letter crafted by filmmaker Luc Bourdon uses clips from 120 NFB films to pay tribute to the city of Montreal in the '50s and '60s, with hat tips to its famous figures, places and residents. Part documentary, part poem, part essay, The Memories of Angels is a unique experience that allows us to revisit the history of Montreal, with its great figures, its emblematic sites and its ordinary citizens.
Luc Bourdon
Luc Bourdon is a prolific director and a key figure in Canadian video art. He has directed more than 50 works in his career, creating documentaries, fictional films and experimental pieces that deal with history and memory. These themes are explored in the feature films he directed for the NFB, The Memories of Angels (2008), and its sequel, The Devil’s Share (2017). In the 1980s, he became known for distinctive videos that exemplified his unique perspective and predilection for research. These early works already showed the artist’s fondness for poetic forms and language, relying on sensations rather than literal illustration. Plan de fuite (1995) eloquently reflects this tendency, as do the film previously mentionned. He has also built a reputation as a tireless experimenter, a creator of immersive, impressionistic worlds. His playful treatment of picture and sound bespeaks an artist perpetually in search of a fresh approach to the moving image.
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