August 17, 2024
12:00
Lac-Brome Theater

Jean-Philippe Marquis

English, English subtitles
Feature film
Documentary / In competition
Classification: General
80 minutes

Documentary. Canada. 2023

Set amongst the rugged forests and shorelines of the British Columbia, Silvicola is a tableau of the complex web of cultural and economic forces which compel and constrain modern forestry practices. A story told through the eyes of an eclectic mix of characters whose lives and livelihoods are intimately entangled with the forest, Silvicola employs sinuating vignettes and industrial soundscapes to explore the tensions and dilemmas between commodification and conservation. Contemplative and sensorially immense, Silvicola embeds the viewer within remote spaces and worksites normally hidden from view, from the verdure of old growth canopies to the destructive gigantism of mechanical harvesting to the numbing rhythm of sapling nurseries. A study of both our connection and disconnection with the forest, Silvicola is a film which demands a rethink of the divisions between natural and industrial worlds by spotlighting the hidden labour and logics of modern forestry.

Followed by a discussion with guest programmer and journalist Daniel Racine.

Awards

2024
Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival , Official Selection, Best Environmental Film

2023
Planet In Focus International Environmental Film Festival, Official Selection, Best Canadian Feature Film

2023
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Official Selection, John Kastner Award

Jean-Philippe Marquis

Jean-Philippe Marquis is a documentary filmmaker and director of photography based in Bella Coola, British Columbia. He has ten years of cinematography experience on documentaries and television series. As a director, his documentary work is often non-linear, and dwells on themes of contested geographies and resource extraction. He has made short films in Palestine, Congo-Kinshasa, and Cameroon, and has filmed extensively throughout Yukon and Western Canada.
Jean-Philippe’s most recent work is Silvicola (Hot Docs, DOXA 2023), a feature-length documentary offering an unusually intimate glimpse into the people, processes, and paradoxes of modern forestry practices. Silvicola was produced with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, and the NFB. An alumnus of the Hot Docs Accelerator program (2018), Jean-Philippe is the recipient of a Leo Award for Best Cinematography on a Documentary Series (2018) as well as an IDRC Award for International Development Journalism (2012). He holds degrees in journalism from Concordia University and anthropology from Université de Montréal.

Silvicola, 80 min, 2023.
Official selection Hot Docs 2023.
Official selection DOXA 2023.

Line in the Sand, (co-director with Tomas Borsa) 80 min, 2015.
Audience Choice Award, 2016 Glasgow Document Human Rights Film Festival.
Best of the Fest Award, 2016 Haida Gwaii Film Festival.
Official Selection, 2016 Artswells Festival.

Kienze, 40 min, 2013.
Official Selection, 2013 Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival.
Official Selection, 2015 Ljubljana Days of Ethnographic Film Festival.
Abed’s Silent Fight, 28 min, 2010.
Official Selection, 2012 Quebec International Ethnographic Film Festival