The Trenches
Foreign title: La tranchée (French)
- Studio
- National Film Board of Canada
- Distributor
- National Film Board of Canada
Synopsis
A young man is getting ready to fight at the front. On the battlefield and in the depths of the ditches, the recruits are dreading the order to attack. It's war. The roar of explosions moving ever closer forebodes a spectacle of horror. Anxiety tightens its grip. The signal is given. The soldier leaps out of the trench and into a hellish expanse where the earth engulfs both the living and the dead as far as the eye can see.
Using brush and India ink to contemporize archival World War I images, Claude Cloutier pulls us into the inner reality of his protagonist through half-real, half-surrealistic scenes that reveal the symbolic importance of the earth. The Trenches is an intense cinematic experience, a powerful anti-war film that asks the question: Why? The dirty war that raged nearly one hundred years ago is no different from all those erupting today that reduce men and women to mere cannon fodder.
Using brush and India ink to contemporize archival World War I images, Claude Cloutier pulls us into the inner reality of his protagonist through half-real, half-surrealistic scenes that reveal the symbolic importance of the earth. The Trenches is an intense cinematic experience, a powerful anti-war film that asks the question: Why? The dirty war that raged nearly one hundred years ago is no different from all those erupting today that reduce men and women to mere cannon fodder.
Characters
Young Soldier
Credits
Directing
- Director
- Claude Cloutier
Producing
- Producer
- Marc Bertrand
- Line Producer
- Francine Langdeau
- Executive Producer
- René Chénier
Writing
- Writer
- Claude Cloutier
Animation
- Animator
- Claude Cloutier
- Computer Graphics
- Nicolas Brault, Benoît Chagnon, Emmanuel Suquet
Voices
Music
- Music
- Nathalie Boileau (Musical Adaptation)
- Music -- Performance
- L'Ensemble Cinématique
- Sound Design
- Olivier Calvert
- Music Editing
- Geoffrey Mitchell
Editing
- Editor
- José Heppell
- Online Editing
- Denis Pilon
Crew
- Camera
- Éric Barbeau
- Costumes
- Francesca Chamberland, Sylvie Charbonneau, Sylvie Guillard
- Recording
- Geoffrey Mitchell
- Re-Recording
- Serge Boivin
- Voice Director
- Natalie Hamel Roy
- Foley
- Lise Wedlock
- Foley Assistant
- Wendy Ouellette
- Digital Imaging Specialists
- Pierre Plouffe, Susan Gourley
- Titles
- Gaspard Gaudreau
- Technical Support
- Isabelle Painchaud
- Special Advisor
- Marcel Jean
- Historical Research
- Jocelyne Perrier
- Marketing Manager
- Christine Noël
- Administrator
- Diane Regimbald
- Administrative Team
- Diane Ayotte, Michèle Labelle, Karine Desmeules
- Technical Coordinator
- Julie Laperrière
Production notes
Release date is that of screening at the New York City Short Film Festival.
Awards
Best Animation, New York City Short Film Festival, 2010.
Anima Mundi Itinerant Award- with a cash prize of $700 BRL (approx. $400 CDN), Anima Mundi, Rio de Janeiro, 2011
Anima Mundi Itinerant Award- with a cash prize of $700 BRL (approx. $400 CDN), Anima Mundi, Rio de Janeiro, 2011