Press
S-AIR Residency Report
By Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre
S-Air , Sapporo, Japan
May 2009
Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre writes about her three moths artist residency in Sapporo, Japan, where she developed the animated film The Sapporo Project.
PASSAGES by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre wins Best Animation at the Brooklyn International Film Festival
By Ministère des Relations Internationales
Relations Internationales Québec, Broolkyn, USA
June 2009
Sunday, June 14th 2009, at the closing night of the Brooklyn International Film Festival 12th edition, PASSAGES by Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre won Best Animation Film.
Passages
By Kathleen Mullen & Gisèle Gordon
Toronto International Film Festival Group, Toronto, Canada
January 2009
Passages is selected as one of the best 10 Canadian short films of the year!
Strikingly expressive animation illuminates this deeply moving tale of unexpected horror. Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre delicately balances the personal with the universal to convey her terrifying journey with powerful grace.
Sapporo KinoTheatre: Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre's Sold Out Screening
By Inter cross Creative Center
ICC News, Sapporo, Japan
December 2008
Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre’s sold out screening at the Kino Theatre in Sapporo, Japan. In this picture, she presents The Sapporo Project with the calligrapher Gazanbou Higuchi in attendance.
Making a stand for animated documentary film
By Alexis Gagnon
Magazine Convergence, Montreal, Canada
January 2007
Some are puzzled at animated documentary, not knowing what kind of film they are looking at. It's a genre that is alive and not recent, claims director and producer Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, who works extensively with this style.
Réalité Animée
By Valérie Simard
Quartier Libre, Montreal, Canada
November 2008
Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, director of McLaren's Negatives and Passages believes that a marriage between animation and documentary is possible. « Even if a documentary is claiming to reproduce reality, it cannot be totally objective. A documentary is a representation of reality that is altered by the director's eye. » Taking as an example Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 she says: « It's not the real portrait of the Americans, but the vision Michael Moore has of his fellow citizens. »
Short... and to the point: Passages
By John Wildman
American Film Institute Festival, Los Angeles, USA
October 2008
From Hiroshima, Japan, Marie-Josée gives an interview to John Wildman from the American Film Institute.
Marie-Josee’s short animated film, PASSAGES begins like an etch-a-sketch primer on the beauty and awe of bringing a new life into the world. Unfortunately, just as everyone who has gone through the experience will tell you—over and over and over again—that’s just the beginning. And for Marie-Josee, thanks to what may be the most thorough collection of incompetent people gathered under one roof to care for the ill and infirm—it nearly became the end for her child. But the film is not simply an indictment on one particular hospital or one woman’s harrowing nightmare of a birthing experience gone horribly wrong. It manages to aim for and hit a trickier target—the wonder and fear, then fortitude and fighting spirit of a new mother and her newborn child.
From McLaren to motherhood
By Malcolm Fraser
Montreal Mirror, Montreal, Canada
January 2008
Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre is selected by the Mirror as one of the Noisemakers for 2008!
Many a young film student has been inspired by the work of NFB animation pioneer Norman McLaren, but few have parlayed this inspiration into an award-winning film of their own. That takes the kind of gumption displayed by 29-year-old producer/director Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, whose short McLaren’s Negatives came out of left field to win last year’s Jutra award for best animated film.
Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre's masterclass on the animated documentary
By Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre
London International Animation Festival, London, England
August 2006
Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of animated documentaries produced around the world. Even the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, recognizes that an animated documentary can compete in the documentary section.
Norman McLaren Here
By Terri Dentry
Design Network, Australia
October 2007
Animated documentaries are a new wave of an older art form combining elements of a life, a lifetime career, a unique art, and a quick sharp look at what holds it all together in a new age technological mix. Terri Dentry talked at length with Marie-Josee Saint-Pierre about her latest animated film, which showcases the life of a master of animation: Norman McLaren.