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document
world cinema
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contemporar
Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo Before Tomorrow (Le jour avant le lendemain)
USA / JAPAN
The sight of a little boy in Tokyo buying a rare beetle at a pet shop for
CANADA
Ancient faces and ancient ways are at the heart of this adaptation
Director: Jessica Oreck $47 may strike American viewers as odd. So may the scene in which he Directors: Marie-Hélène Cousineau, of Danish writer Jørn Riel’s novel about the near extinction of native
Producer: Jessica Oreck, Maiko Endo, introduces it to his other beetles – and even to his friends’ pet beetles.
Madeline Piujug Ivalu
peoples in the far north of Canada. Employing the gentle pace of a past
Akito Kawahara
But by the end of Jessica Oreck’s entrancing documentary about Japan’s
Producer: Stéphane Rituit
era and stunningly austere landscape cinematography by Norman Cohn
Screenwriter: Jessica Oreck age-old love affair with insects, we’ll see such moments as we would see Screenwriters: Susan Avingaq, and Félix Lajeunesse, it carefully evokes a world on the fringes of our
Cinematographer: Sean Williams a kid in Iowa choosing a puppy.
Marie Hélène Cousineau, Madeline Ivalu
own.
MS: A to Z
Editors: Theo Angell, Jessica Oreck
Cinematographers: Norman Cohn,
MS: A to Z
il
Félix Lajeunesse
2009 / color / 90 min.
“My aim is to challenge the way Westerners view nature, beauty, and Members of a nineteenth-century clan of Inuit obtain steel knives and
il
the hectic monotony of our day-to-day routine,” says the first-time
Editors: Norman Cohn, Marie
needles from white traders, oblivious to the fact that the exchange will
E F
feature filmmaker, who also happens to be an animal keeper and
Hélène Cousineau, Félix Lajeunesse,
bring the deadly smallpox virus into their community. The only survivors
E F
h Louise Dugal
JESSiCa orECK
h
T
docent at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Like of the ensuing disaster are an elderly woman, Ningiuq (Madeline Piujuq
T
Jessica Oreck works at the American
Jacques Perrin’s up-close-and-personal 1996 visit to the insect world,
Cast: Madeline Ivalu, Paul-Dylan Ivalu,
Ivalu, who codirected with Marie-Hélène Cousineau), and her grandson
Museum of Natural History in New York
Mary Qulitalik, Peter Henry Arnatsiaq,
Microcosmos, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo provides an intimate look
City as an animal keeper and docent.
Tumasie Sivuarapik
Maniq (Paul-Dylan Ivalu, Ivalu’s real-life grandson), who have been
She also produces animated science
at life forms most of us fear or ignore. But it does more than that: Oreck
2008 / color / 93 min.
away drying fish for supplies. When no one returns to retrieve them,
shows and is currently building her
also illuminates the history of a culture that reveres all of nature, not the two brave the sea journey home alone, where they discover all their
own museum exhibition. Beetle Queen only in everyday life but in its art and philosophy too. We learn the story loved ones dead. With the polar winter upon them, they must fend for
Conquers Tokyo is her first feature film.
of the first emperor, who named Japan the Isle of the Dragonflies; we themselves and try to survive long enough to join another Inuit clan.
visit Buddhist shrines, nature preserves, and art museums en route to
MariE-hÉLÈnE CouSinEau
Sustaining them in their struggle is the timeless tradition of storytelling,
understanding Japan’s fascination with butterflies, crickets, fireflies, and
Marie-Hélène Cousineau not only
whereby they draw on the strength of their ancestors while making
caterpillars. We meet insect merchants and go on a hunting trip with an
formed the collective Arnait Ikajurtigiit
sense of their own plight.
(Women’s Video Workshop) but
insect harvester; upon sharing a glass of hornet-flavored sake with him,
serves there as coordinator/trainer
we speed off in his low-slung Ferrari – whose shape itself suggests some
and collaborating producer. She has
Written in the Inuktitut language, this is the third film in a series
kind of exotic bug. We even watch Japanese women buying treats and an MFA in communications from the about Inuit life and Arctic mythology by Isuma Productions of Igloolik,
beds for their beloved insect pets.
University of Iowa and has taught as an
Nunavut, and its Quebec-based collaborators. The first of these was the
associate professor of communications
much-heralded Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which won the Caméra
at Concordia University in Montreal.
Above all, suggests Oreck, Beetle Queen “is about attention to detail,
Before Tomorrow is her first feature
d’Or for Best First Feature Film at Cannes in 2001.
patience, and, ultimately, harmony – all of which are so rarely present in
film.
our modern lives.”
Sponsored by:
MaDELinE PiuJuG iVaLu
Madeline Ivalu has worked as a
cultural advisor, actor, writer, musician,
storyteller, and director. She was
part of the Pan Arctic Women Artists
Workshop and is president of Naluat,
a women’s sewing collective. She is also
a representative at Paukktutit, a pan-
Canadian Inuit women’s organization.
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