Synopsis

Lost in a reverie, a man reels with sudden, piercing awareness of his own state of being. He ponders the world in which he lives—from the evolution of life and the atomic particles that constitute matter, to the mystery of memory and the enigma of death. Bounded by a walled enclosure, he is both unique and no different than anyone else who has searched in vain for the key to the great beyond. Through four tableaux that explore her character’s thoughts, filmmaker Michèle Lemieux takes a mischievous look at the profound reflections of this everyman, whose questions are part of humanity’s eternal quest for meaning.

Michèle Lemieux

Michèle Lemieux is an illustrator and animation filmmaker who has taught at UQAM’s school of design for over 30 years. Since the late 1970s, she’s worked on 15 illustrated books for young people, including Stormy Night (1997), which was adapted to the screen in 2003 at the NFB. In 2006, during a workshop given by Jacques Drouin, Lemieux was introduced to the Alexeïeff-Parker pinscreen, subsequently becoming the artistic heir to this unique animation technique. She has made two short films using the pinscreen: Here and the Great Elsewhere (2012), which won a number of awards, and, most recently, The Painting (2024).