Two filmmakers distributed by Vidéographe are standing out from the crowd in film festivals and making their names in their respective fields, that of the short fiction film in the case of Anne Émond and the art video in the case of Owen Eric Wood. We offer you here two texts that trace the paths of their works in festivals, along with a few words from their distributor, Vidéographe in Montreal, Canada.

A recent text by Owen Eric Wood describing his artistic project is also provided. Read the text +

You can also view a video montage of his performance Parallel, which he presented at Vithèque’s launch. View the video +

*Please note that the works of these authors are only accessible to professionals subscribers: broadcasters, distributors, programmers.





Anne Émond

Over the course of 2010, two films by Anne Émond enjoyed special success: Naissances, made in 2009, and Sophie Lavoie, her most recent short film.

From Spain to France and Germany to Italy, by way of Slovakia and Croatia, Naissances has travelled the world visiting the planet’s most prestigious festivals for two years now. And the film’s visit to these events has not gone unnoticed, collecting 4 major awards to date, including Best Narrative Short at the Brooklyn International Film Festival and the Gold Kazoo for best short film at the Francophone Film Festival of Kalamazoo.

Sophie Lavoie has not lagged behind. The world premiere of this film took place at the Toronto International Film Festival and it won the Grand Prix Focus for best Canadian short film at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal.


A Word from the Distributor / Vidéographe
By Denis Vaillancourt

Since 2000 Anne Émond has made seven short films, the three most recent of which are distributed by Vidéographe. These three titles, made over a period of a little more than a year, demonstrate the filmmaker’s prolificacy as she writes and shoots her films, we might be tempted to think, in a state of urgency. Anne Émond has things to say. And those things she says well, very well even. L’ordre des choses, the first title picked up for distribution and winner of the Coop Video award for best short film in 2009, was an instant hit with both audiences and its distributor. Naissances and Sophie Lavoie quickly followed, confirming the talent of this young filmmaker, whose work has since been invited to numerous festivals.

L’ordre des choses addresses a painful topic, the loss of a loved one, with restraint and tenderness. Émond already reveals the range of her talent in this forceful short film that deals a blow straight to the viewer’s heart. And distributors, too, have a heart. That is all that is needed to fall under the charm of this storyteller whose sensibility grew with Naissances, closely followed by Sophie Lavoie.

While Émond’s preferred themes include the solitude of a loved one or the person loving; lying as a way of hiding or keeping quiet about the truth; the refusal to drive off reality or look it in the face; and the anxiety of existence, she manages, despite these seemingly heavy topics, erroneously seen as dark, to carefully measure out her arguments, never falling into pathos or complete despondency. There is something fine about this work, something tangible, that leaves no one unfeeling; it strikes where it needs to, slowly and subtly, and it has struck us. She makes films about difficult topics tactfully, but with the strength provided to her by a medium that she has mastered entirely, without any imbalance between form and content.

Anne Émond has the wind in her sails. She has just finished shooting her first feature film. Yes, already! Will she make more short films? We don’t know. But we are here, waiting patiently, enthusiastic at the thought that another short will appear . . . which we already cherish.

Consulter Anne Émond’s author’s sheet +





Owen Eric Wood

Since 2009, three short films by Owen Eric Wood have been screened regularly in festivals around the world; these films are Made Up, Holobomo and Parallel. In November, Holobomo was shown at the Corona Cork Film Festival in Ireland and at INVIDEO in Milan. At the same time, Made Up was screened at the Festival Mix Brasil in São Paulo. This is not the only film of Wood’s to have set foot in Brazil in 2010. Holobomo and Parallel also paid a visit there last July, at the FILE Electronic Language International Festival in São Paulo.

These two films came home with several awards, including the Vision Art Prize from the Visionaria International Video Festival in Italy, in the case of Parallel, and the best video award at the Avanca Film Festival in Portugal in the case of Holobomo.


A Word from the Distributor / Vidéographe
By Denis Vaillancourt

When Owen Eric Wood submitted his work to Vidéographe’s acquisitions committee for the first time in 2007, the stage was already set, the artist already apparent and the work already marked with a strong signature. Of the five films he submitted - Self-Portrait, Quality Time with the Family, The Clothes Make the Man, Lost and Holobomo - four were immediately picked up for distribution on the basis of their strength, the quality of their form and content and the sensitive, troubling and masterly intelligence at work, one keenly felt by the viewer. Holobomo, which also attracted the distributor’s attention, was reworked by Wood at his request, who delivered a final version two years later that was tinged with a palpable melancholy to which the distributor could not remain insensitive. The works that followed, Made Up and Parallel, confirmed the undeniable talent and depth of ideas of this artist.

Throughout his career Wood, true to himself, places himself in his films, investigating reality, his reality, taking up and taking apart the theme of the search for identity and his role in society as a man but also as an artist: the role he plays, the space he occupies, the image he holds out of himself and which sometimes employs a fine and subtle sense of self-mockery, but always with his own unique sensibility.

Parallel, Wood’s most recent video, takes up the artist’s existential questions with respect to himself and his work. The topics he explores are tinged with the nostalgia and melancholy proper to Wood, who tells stories and his own story, revealing himself bit by bit to the viewer. Here and there, paths are laid down and the pieces of the puzzle appear to come together, but they immediately slip out of our grasp. There thus exudes from his work a palpable solitude, existential anxieties, a keen sensitivity and a fragility which, from Wood’s first work to his last, have gone straight to the distributor’s heart, touched and troubled by the “Woodian” visual style of its author, who transforms everything he touches into art. A multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, photography, sculpture and performance to express himself, Wood makes the looker look at him or herself, to ask questions of themselves also. His work is like a mirror, reflecting the viewer’s anxieties back to them, inviting them to introspection, perhaps well; hence the strength and the unity of Wood’s entire output, in the face of which it is impossible to remain unmoved.

Owen Eric Wood’s work is always awaited with impatience by the distributor who, from the very first images, recognised the talent of this uncommon multidisciplinary artist with his own style. And while the distributor has taken on the job of introducing people to Wood’s films and making them better known at home and abroad, we do so also with great pride in being the “emissary” of this work.


Consult Owen Eric Wood's author sheet +
Consult OWen Eric Wood's text +
Watch the video montage of his performance, Parrallel +