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René Bonnière (14)
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White-Whale Hunters of Anse-Aux-BasquesRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minOn the North Shore of the St. Lawrence, the Otis family hunts for white whales and seals with rusty old rifles in hand-crafted boats. This is the traditional method of the Basque whalers who frequented the coast in the 16th century. -
TurlutteRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minIn a valley on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence, the seasons unfold with their chores and pleasures: children gathering roses for honey, an old uncle's wine, pressing apple cider, three brothers shelling broads beans, their flails beating time, grandmother's spinning wheel, the old stone mill, the rushing rivulets of spring, a silvery catch of capelin washed up on shore by the May Moon.
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The Jean RichardRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1963 29 minThe building of a goélette, the wooden coastal freighter of the St. Lawrence River. Although ships of steel may replace these sturdy wooden vessels, the Jean Richard, shown in construction in this film, is still one ship built with all the old pride in craftsmanship.
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Ka Ke Ki KuRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minThis early work from Pierre Perrault, made in collaboration with René Bonnière, chronicles summer activities in the Innu communities of Unamenshipu (La Romaine) and Pakuashipi. Shot by noted cinematographer Michel Thomas-d’Hoste, it documents the construction of a traditional canoe, fishing along the Coucouchou River, a procession marking the Christian feast of the Assumption, and the departure of children for residential schools—an event presented here in an uncritical light. Perrault’s narration, delivered by an anonymous male voice, underscores the film’s outsider gaze on its Indigenous subjects. The film is from Au Pays de Neufve-France (1960), a series produced by Crawley Films, an important early Canadian producer of documentary films.
Alexis Joveneau, a Catholic priest with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, worked in the Innu community of Unamenshipu (La Romaine) between 1960 and 1985, and appears in five NFB productions: Attiuk (1960), Ka Ke Ki Ku (1960), Le goût de la farine (1977), Le pays de la terre sans arbre ou le Mouchouânipi (1980) and La grande allure II (1985). Joveneau is seen in several scenes of Ka Ke Ki Ku, teaching Innu children and providing Innu-aimun/French translation.
In November 2017, during Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, a number of Innu women from Unamenshipu testified that they had been sexually and physically abused by Joveneau, who died in 1992. Many other women subsequently came forward with similar allegations, and on March 29, 2018, a request for a class action was filed in Quebec Superior Court on behalf of the women against the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The class action was authorized on November 16, 2021. The Oblates named in the suit include Alexis Joveneau, Omer Provencher, Edmond Brouillard, Raynald Couture and Édouard Meilleur.” -
AttiukRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1963 29 minThe people of Unamenshipu (La Romaine), an Innu community in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec, are seen but not heard in this richly detailed documentary about the rituals surrounding an Innu caribou hunt. Released in 1960, it’s one of 13 titles in Au Pays de Neufve-France, a series of poetic documentary shorts about life along the St-Lawrence River. Off-camera narration, written by Perrault, frames the Innu participants through an ethnographic lens. Co-directed by René Bonnière and Pierre Perrault, a founding figure of Quebec’s cinéma direct movement.
Alexis Joveneau, a Catholic priest with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, worked in the Innu community of Unamenshipu (La Romaine) between 1960 and 1985, and appears in five NFB productions: Attiuk (1960), Ka Ke Ki Ku (1960), Le goût de la farine (1977), Le pays de la terre sans arbre ou le Mouchouânipi (1980) and La grande allure II (1985). Joveneau is seen in several scenes of Ka Ke Ki Ku, teaching Innu children and providing Innu-aimun/French translation.
In November 2017, during Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, a number of Innu women from Unamenshipu testified that they had been sexually and physically abused by Joveneau, who died in 1992. Many other women subsequently came forward with similar allegations, and on March 29, 2018, a request for a class action was filed in Quebec Superior Court on behalf of the women against the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The class action was authorized on November 16, 2021. The Oblates named in the suit include Alexis Joveneau, Omer Provencher, Edmond Brouillard, Raynald Couture and Édouard Meilleur.” -
WhaleheadRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1963 29 minShows Tête-à-la-Baleine, Québec, a village with a double life--one on the North Shore mainland during winter months, the other on mossy islands of the Gulf to which the entire population moves for summer fishing.
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Winter Crossing at L'Isle-Aux-CoudresRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minOn an island the road ends where it begins, at the wharf. The wharf is the link to the rest of the world, until winter cuts it off. But the islanders know the winter sea and its movements. They judge the ice by its colours, avoiding the open channels, fighting through the slushy fragil ice, catching their footing on the chunk ice, and running all-out across the solid ice to the North Shore.
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On the SeaRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minThree communities at the foot of the Charlevoix cliffs, Petite-Rivière, île-aux-Coudres and Les Éboulements, practise the myriad trades of the sea. Its men are sailors, stevedores, longshoremen for the coasting trade. In winter, they becomes caulkers, carpenters and timer-cutters who will build a new vessel if required, or repair, caulk and paint the over 150 wooden schooners that ply the St. Lawrence River.
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Winter Sealing at La TabatièreRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1963 29 minLife in a north-shore village where everybody's name is Robertson and where everyone hunts for seal. In December the seals come in great herds from Greenland, and for two weeks in this peaceful village it's all hands to the lines.
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The AnnanacksRené Bonnière 1964 29 minThis short documentary depicts the formation in 1959 of the first successful co-operative in an Inuit community in Northern Québec. The film describes how, with other Inuit of the George River community, the Annanacks formed a joint venture that included a sawmill, a fish-freezing plant and a small boat-building industry.
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Canadian DiamondsRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minWhen Cartier wintered at Cap Rouge near Québec City in 1641, he claimed to have detected diamonds in the surrounding hills. Was he so very wrong? Three centuries later, 15,000 men have come to excavate the iron mountains of the Canadian tundra where the rust of those diamonds still sparkles.
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Three SeasonsRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minAll along the North Shore from Saint-Tite-des-Caps to the bay of Sept-îles, logging starts with the construction of the camps. But the good logs once used for the legendary log cabins are now turned into planks, beams and rafters in the sawmill that has replaced the side axes and board saws. It takes three seasons to harvest the logs. First the autumn for felling the trees with the chain saws that have taken over from the bow saws and two-handed saws. Then the winter snows to make it easier for the horses to haul the logs to the ice-covered rivers. And finally the wild waters of spring that carry the logs to the wooden schooners that will take them to the mill.
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The Land of Jacques CartierRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minDid Cartier dream of making a country from this land of a million birds? In his records of his exploration he certainly marvelled at seeing the great auks that have since disappeared from Isle aux Ouaiseaulx, the razor-bills and gannets that are gone from Blanc-Sablon, and the kittiwakes from Anticosti, all the winged creatures of all the islands which he described as being "as full of birds as a meadow is of grass". And that's not even counting the countless snow geese.
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Soiree at St.HilarionRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minA virtual prisoner of the winter snows that block its roads, the village of St.Hilarion, to justify its name, revels in the joys of the jig and the "turlutte", the lilting songs that tell the humorous tale, ever new and yet essentially always the same, about the sorry fate of the one who gives into temptation.
