In partnership with the NFB Alexeïeff/Parker, Shadow Tamers has opened at the Musée-Château d’Annecy on June 16 with pinscreen artists Jacques Drouin and Michèle Lemieux in attendance June 16, 2015 – Annecy, France – National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is attending the launch of the exhibit Alexeïeff/Parker, Shadow Tamers (Alexeïeff/Parker, montreurs d’ombres)—mounted by the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC) and the Musées de l’agglomération d’Annecy in partnership with the NFB—on Tuesday, June 16, at 7 p.m. at the Musée-Château d’Annecy.
Guests will include filmmakers Jacques Drouin and Michèle Lemieux, the artistic heirs of pinscreen inventors Alexandre Alexeïeff and Claire Parker, as well as Julie Roy, executive producer of the NFB’s French Animation Studio and producer of Lemieux’s films. The opening will be followed at 10 p.m. by a screening in the museum courtyard of a selection of films created using the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen. Launching at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival 40 years after a large exhibition at the Musée-Château celebrated the 50th anniversary of the couple’s artistic collaboration, Alexeïeff/Parker, Shadow Tamers takes a fresh look at their work, revealing exciting new aspects to their impressive contributions to engraving and animation. The exhibition will also cover current pinscreen works, notably in a section on films made at the NFB by Drouin and Lemieux. The pinscreen acquired by the NFB in 1972 is the only one in the world that remains in use today. To encourage European artists to work with the legendary device, in 2012 the CNC acquired the only other pinscreen still able to create animation. At the behest of the CNC, from June 10 to 12 Lemieux gave a workshop in Annecy that introduced filmmakers to the pinscreen. The book Alexeïeff/Parker, montreurs d’ombres, assembled by the Musées de l’agglomération d’Annecy in conjunction with the CNC and Éditions de l’Œil, is an ensemble work that features essays by Roy, Drouin, and Lemieux, as well as illustrations of documents and artifacts on display at the exhibition. The book launch will include a round-table discussion on June 17 and a book signing on June 18. Jacques Drouin and Michèle Lemieux will give a master class on June 18.
Exhibition dates and partners: Alexeïeff/Parker, Shadow Tamers, June 8 to October 5, 2015, at the Musée-Château d’Annecy, is produced by the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC) and the Musées de l’agglomération d’Annecy in partnership with the NFB, Ateliers Rigal, Cinédoc – Paris Films Coop, FRL Productions, CITIA, Cité de l’image en mouvement and Éditions de l’Œil. · Promotion of the book Alexeïeff/Parker, montreurs d’ombres o Round-table discussion: Wednesday, June 17, at 4 p.m., main hall, Musée-Château d’Annecy o Book signing: Thursday, June 18, at 5 p.m., at the Centre culturel de Bonlieu, organized by BD fugue Café · Master class by Jacques Drouin and Michèle Lemieux On Thursday, June 18, at 11 a.m. in the main hall of the Musée-Château, the two filmmakers will introduce participants to pinscreen techniques. · Description of the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen The pinscreen is a white vertical screen with hundreds of thousands of perforations, each fitted with a retractable pin. Lit from the side, the pins, whose height can be adjusted, cast shadows of varying lengths. This grid of pins and shadows creates a grey-scale that ranges from black to white and is used to produce animated images that look like engravings or charcoal drawings. The NFB’s pinscreen consists of 240,000 pins in a 52 x 39 cm surface.
[Qui sotto, il video realizzato dagli studenti di animazione del Gobelins in onore di Claire Parker, una delle “donne all’onore” celebrate quest’anno dal Festival di Anency]