The Human Plant | |
---|---|
French | La Plante humaine |
Directed by | Pierre Hébert |
Written by | Pierre Hébert Anne Quesemand |
Produced by | Yves Leduc Freddy Denaës |
Starring | Michael Lonsdale Sotigui Kouyaté |
Cinematography | Michael Cleary Michel Dubois Raymond Dumas Barry Wood |
Edited by | Fernand Bélanger |
Music by | Robert Marcel Lepage |
Production companies | Arcadia Films National Film Board of Canada |
Release date |
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Running time | 80 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | French |
The Human Plant (French: La Plante humaine) is a Canadian animated feature film, directed by Pierre Hébert and released in 1996.[1] The film stars Michael Lonsdale as Mr. Michel, a lonely and isolated widower who spends all his time at home watching television, but is driven to nightmare visions by the constant bombardment of negative and frightening information.[2]
The film was a coproduction of the National Film Board of Canada and commercial film studio Arcadia Films.[3] It grew out of an experimental stage animation project that Hébert undertook with composer Robert Marcel Lepage in the 1990s, in which Hébert would draw improvisational animations while Lepage performed a live score.[4]
Its voice cast also included Sotigui Kouyaté, Domini Blythe, Joseph Rouleau, Michelle Allen, Laurent Chabot, Marisa Corriols and Denis Karegeya.
The film premiered at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival.[5] It was subsequently screened at the Ottawa International Animation Festival[6] and at the Festival du nouveau cinéma.
Lepage received a Genie Award nomination for Best Original Score at the 18th Genie Awards in 1997.[7] The film won the Prix AQCC-SODEC from the Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in 1997.[8]