Mentorship

Multidisciplinary artist, Alexis Bellavance works within time. His findings, sometimes loud, sometimes silent, are concrete observations of his surroundings. Cycles, positions, laws, echoes, materials, become the segments of conceptual scaffoldings that leads to multiple disciplines: audio art, performance, installation, photography. The consequences of his work are empirical results emerging from his attention to reality and certain of its accidents.

Nathalie Bujold joined the l’Oeil de Poisson collective when it was founded in 1985. In 1992, she completed a Bachelor’s degree at Université Laval and was awarded the Prix René-Richard. In 2016, she obtained a Master’s degree in visual and media arts from UQAM. The same year, her work was exhibited at Vidéochroniques, Marseille. Monograph programs of her single-channel videos have been presented at GIV, Vidéographe, Heure Exquise! and Pleasure Dome. In 2008, she was awarded the Prix de la création artistique by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) for her video Les trains où vont les choses. Her work has been presented in Canada at Stride and AKA as well as in numerous places across Quebec, notably the Cinémathèque québécoise, the Musée national de beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ), and the festivals AKOUSMA, Phos, FIMAV, FIFA and Percéides.

Pier-Philippe Chevigny is a filmmaker from Montreal, Quebec. His films combine anxiety-inducing camerawork and suspenseful scripts based on contemporary social issues. His short films Tala, Vétérane and Rebel were selected at over 200 festivals worldwide. His first feature Richelieu world premiered in the international competition at the 2023 Tribeca Festival and was selected at dozens of festivals including Karlovy Vary, Fantasia, Palm Springs and Namur where it won the prestigious Bayard for Best First Feature. In 2024, he is set to return to the short film world with a new project titled Mercenaire. He is currently wrapping up development on his follow-up feature.

Simon Gaudreau’s movies are characterized by an incarnated point of view, directed on singular characters. From these characters, generally evolving in micro-societies, emerge the social and political dimensions inherent to his cinema. His feature-length documentary King of the l’Est was selected at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in 2010. Gagnon, his first short fiction film, was presented at the Rendez-vous du cinéma Québécois in February 2014. His second documentary, Fucké, was presented to the FNC, FIFEQ, RVCQ and FCIAT in 2014-2015. Minoritaires is his most recent film.

Originally from Montréal, Margaret Haines is an artist whose multidisciplinary, research-based practice combines, in singular fashion, film, literature, philosophy, astrology, photography and installation. She studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Concordia University and the California Institute of the Arts, has exhibited in London, Brussels, The Hague, Paris, New York and Los Angeles, and is a recent resident of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. She is currently completing her forthcoming book on the life and work of the artist, poet, actress and occultist Marjorie Cameron Parsons. Haines’s latest films are multifaceted meandering narratives riddled with philosophical investigation. Her shooting and editing style merges points of view, mixes staged scenes with improvised encounters. Haines’s frame oscillates between a myriad of traditional cinema styles, from Hollywood fiction film to cinéma vérité, in the creation of a unique form. The films are rife with colliding references to the works of Jean Genet, Kate Millett, Adorno, and allusions to ancient Greek mythology, corporate America, celebrity culture, Astrology, and Thrasher magazine. The result is an examination of culture and aesthetics that stretches the definitions of what is poetically and politically possible within the moving image art category of short film.

Nelson Henricks was born in Bow Island, Alberta and graduated from the Alberta College of Art. He moved to Montréal in 1991 and received a BFA from Concordia University. He recently completed a PhD at Université du Québec à Montréal. Henricks has taught art history and studio art at Concordia University, McGill University, UQAM and Université de Montréal. His writings have been published in exhibition catalogues, magazines, and in several anthologies. A curator and artist, Henricks is best known for his videotapes and video installations, which have been exhibited worldwide. A focus on his video work was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as part of the Video Viewpoints series in 2000. Henricks was the recipient of the Bell Canada Award in Video Art in 2002 and the Prix Giverny Capital in 2015. A mid-career retrospective of his work was presented at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery in Montréal in 2010. His work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal and others. He is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto.

Line Katcho is a composer and audio-visual artist from Montreal. Primarily interested in sound and image as demonstrations of motion, forces or gestures, she also distinguishes herself through an affinity for perceptual games, and a talent for use of affect. Radiating a narrative and cinematic feel, her work is driven and provocative, fusing reference to abstraction, experimentation to tradition. Leaning towards a mixing of styles, genres and applied methods, her empirical approach aims at creating a sensory and cathartic experience, rooted in expression, in pursuit of authenticity.

Holder of a master’s degree about the links between contemporary music and sound in cinema, Bruno Pucella has written and directed a documentary (Gospel According to Vivienne, 2011) as well as four short films (Interferences, Perle, Davaï, Chemin d’Empreintes et d’Emprunts). He is currently finishing a documentary on the sculptor Lisette Lemieux. In parallel, he has twenty-five years of experience in sound design and sound recording. In 2020, he won the Iris for best sound in the documentary category for the film Istanbul echoes by Giulia Frati, for which he also signed the original score. Although film remains his main creative space, he regularly contributes to projects for the performing arts, media arts and visual art. Musician, he has signed the soundtrack for documentaries and produced original music for dance shows.

Nelly-Ève Rajotte is a professor at UQAM’s School of Design, where she heads the Moving Image and Sound Design division. A visual and media artist, her hybrid practice focuses on the moving image, sound and immersion through performance and installation. In addition to numerous exhibitions in Quebec, including at the Musée d’art de Joliette, Fonderie Darling, Occurrence, Clark, Optica and Circa, his work has been shown at several festivals in Canada, including MUTEK, the Festival International du film sur l’art and Espace [IM] Média, as well as abroad – International short film festival of Berlin (Germany), Transmediale (Germany), MUTEK (Argentina, Japan and Mexico), Lab30 (Germany), Finnish Contemporary Art Fair (Finland) and ISEA2020. Her work will be presented at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) in spring 2024.

Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre is an animator whose work presents a new approach to filmmaking, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction. She has directed several short animated documentaries, including Les Négatifs de McLaren (2006), JUTRA (2014) and La théorie Lauzon (2022). Her work has achieved international recognition, with screenings at over 150 film festivals and numerous awards. She holds a doctorate in art studies and practices with a post-graduate concentration in feminist studies (UQÀM), and is currently an associate professor at Université Laval’s School of Design in the Art and Science of Animation program.

Experimental filmmaker and video artist Guillaume Vallée graduated from Concordia University with a degree in animation and an MFA in Studio Arts – Film Production. He works with film (Super8, 16mm, 35mm), analog video (VHS, Hi8) and stereoscopic video (red/cyan anaglyph). He uses his multiple processes to produce short films, music videos, audiovisual performances and video design for theater, dance and the music scene.

His experimental films and videos, distributed by Vidéographe, Light Cone and Winnipeg Film Group, have been shown at numerous festivals. As video designer for several musicians, his audiovisual collaborations have been presented at a multitude of events (Canada, U.S., France, Italy, Austria, Spain, England, Japan).

Vallée is a workshop instructor in experimental cinema and video art, offering training in hand-silver development, contact printing, film painting and etching, and analog glitching at various artist-run centers. He has presented his work internationally at La Maison du Québec in Saint-Malo (France), Space Cell Lab (South Korea), filmkoop wien (Austria), and locally at Université de Montréal, Concordia University and Journées de la Culture.

Guillaume Vallée has been artist-in-residence with a number of organizations, including La Bande Vidéo (Canada), Le Fresnoy – studio national des arts contemporains (France), Signal Culture (USA), Studio 303 (Montreal, CA), Visual Alchemy with Al Razutis (British Columbia, CA), Main Film (Montreal, CA), PANACHE Art Actuel (Sept-Îles, CA) and Light Cone, Atelier 105 (Paris, FR), Avatar (Quebec, CA).