Crédits

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Produced by

InformAction

Produced with the financial help of

Canadian Television Fund created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Cable Industry - CFT: Licence Fee Program - Telefilm Canada : Equity Investment Program

Qu?bec Film and Television Tax Credit - Gestion SODEC

SODEC Soci?t? de d?veloppement des entreprises culturelles ? Qu?bec

Rogers Documentary Fund

National Film Board of Canada (NFB) Aide au Cin?ma Ind?pendant (Canada) - ACIC

Government of Canada The Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit

and the collaboration of

T?l?-Qu?bec

Bravo !

ARTV

MAIN CHARACTERS

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Nigel Osborne, Scottish composer and teacher who developed a successful new form of music therapy for children during the war in Bosnia; he has worked with children from former Yugoslavia, Chechnya and Albania; he composed and played Sarajevo, Evropa and the music for a Concert for Peace at the World Economic Forum (Strasbourg, fall 2002).

Daniel Mermet, outspoken French writer and radio journalist, heads a team that produces a daily program on national French radio; his radio documentaries from Rwanda, Chechnya, Sarajevo or closer to home voice the impact of great tragedies, such as war and unemployment, on ordinary people’s lives.

Dominique Blain, Canadian visual artist, creates unusual installations for museums, schools or public locations that evoke war and peace. Her work on anti-personnel mines has gained her international attention. She creates her work without ever having gone “out into the field”, so she gives voice to the questions and doubts many of us would have about “what we can do about it.” 

French visual artist, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, prime mover behind Artists Against Apartheid in the 80’s, uses poster wall art to raise awareness of aids in South Africa: his life-size poster of a black woman carrying the body of a man, Soweto, is displayed in towns across the country. At home his street art centers on poverty and social exclusion.

Nicole Stéphane began her career as an actress in the late 1940’s and worked with some of the great names in French cinema. She then began to direct her own films and eventually became a producer. Her work focuses on the great issues of our time – the Holocaust, Israel and the Palestinians (Promised Lands), the conflict in former Yugoslavia (Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo). Her intense commitment to justice and freedom began in her teens, when she joined the French Liberation forces in London and took part in the liberation of Paris in 1944.

Susan Sontag and Nicole Stéphane’s friendship goes back to the early 1970’s, when Stéphane produced Sontag’s third film, Promised Lands. “We’re friends for life,” says Sontag. Stéphane went on to make her own film about Sontag’s staging of Waiting for Godot in besieged Sarajevo. Sontag is well-known as an intellectual and activist, who took a strong stand against the Vietnam war and the war in Bosnia. “What ultimately matters about Sontag… is what she has defended: the life of the mind and the necessity for reading and writing as a way of being fully human” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

Press

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Un film très inspirant et très beau Odile Tremblay ? Le Devoir

starstarstarhalf_star Un documentaire courageux qui revisite d’un angle original les points chauds de la planète Luc Perreault ? La Presse

starstarstarstar Beautifully composed act of artistic engagement John Griffin ? The Gazette

Provocative, often inspiring Ken Eisner ? Variety

Festivals

Banff Rockie Awards 2004 Nominated Best Arts Documentary

G?meaux Awards 2004 (Montr?al) Nominated Best Social Documentary and Best Photography Documentary

Montreal International Festival New Cinema New Media 2003

Vancouver International Film Festival 2003

Les Escales Documentaires de La Rochelle (International Creative Documentary Festival) 2003

Ann Arbour Film Festival 2004

Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival 2004

Visions du r?el 2004

Statement of intent

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In French Only

 « Vous êtes pas tannés de mourir, bande de caves? » Cette phrase du poète Claude Péloquin, gravée par le sculpteur Jordi Bonnet sur l’une des murales qui ornent le hall du Grand théâtre de Québec, a suscité toute une controverse en 1969. Je commençais alors mon cours en arts visuels... C’était donc aussi ça le travail et le pouvoir d’un artiste : crier à la face du monde ce qu’il ne veut pas entendre.

Mais moi, je ne suis pas vraiment une gueularde. Je ne savais pas trop comment « faire hurler les murs », exprimer ma dissidence, dire l’indignation, l’injustice.

Vingt cinq ans plus tard, au retour de Sarajevo en 1996, je me sens vraiment démunie. Je me demande à nouveau comment faire hurler les murs. Je cherche des réponses. Y a-t-il une manière? Ou des manières?... Je veux rencontrer des artistes ayant un parcours assez long pour permettre la réflexion. Et je me mets en route.

Bien sûr, Sarajevo est au centre de mon questionnement. Car Sarajevo ne ressemble plus aux actualités : elle a un nom, un sourire, une voix, un café, un repas échangé, des pleurs et un fou rire. En même temps, tout près de moi, j’ai une amie malade, un autre qui vient de perdre son emploi ou un être cher, et celle-là avec une peine d’amour... Je n’ai pas de mots non plus pour ma sœur, mon voisin, cette amie...

Voilà donc le point de départ de ces rencontres avec ceux que j’appelle les messagers. Durant ce voyage, de Montréal à la Bosnie, en passant par l’Écosse et la France, plusieurs m’ouvrent leur portes, ouvrent leur cœur à mes interrogations. D’autres ne peuvent être au rendez-vous, occupés ailleurs. Surviennent aussi d’autres rencontres, inattendues, moments parfois inoubliables. Je me perçois comme une Candide – ce personnage de Voltaire –, propulsée sur les chemins où je croise ces messagers, ceux qui, comme le dit si bien Daniel Mermet, « ont cavalé partout sans savoir qu’ils ne recherchaient que la fraîcheur du possible ».

Je veux vous faire partager ces rencontres, car elles sont belles et graves. Et joyeuses!

Chacun de nous devrait se poser cette question : qu’ai-je fait à cette époque? Si je me suis tu, pourquoi ce silence? Si j’ai parlé, qu’ai-je dit et à qui cela a-t-il servi? Je crains que personne n’ait tenté de répondre à ces interrogations.

« L’engagement en littérature? Oui, évidemment. Non, certainement pas. Une seule question valable : pourquoi et contre quoi’. ‘S’engager pour’ est dangereux : on court toujours le risque de choisir le mauvais camp. Aujourd’hui l’inverse me semble plus important : s’engager contre quoi. Toutefois, là aussi le risque de se fourvoyer est grand. Ceux d’entre nous qui portent le nom d’artiste, un nom toujours plus insignifiant dans un monde tapageur et vide, doivent assumer ce choix en interrogeant leur esthétique et parfois leur conscience. » (Vidosav Stevanovic, Paris, août 2000).

Helen Doyle

Short summary

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The Messengers : six artists committed to a better world. Filmmaker Helen Doyle takes us on a journey of discovery as we meet unforgettable, inspiring artists whose work denounces war and barbarity in our time.

Long summary

Artists throughout the world, often outside mainstream culture, commit their lives to opposing war and barbarism through their art. They carry the message “Never again” so often heard after World War II and try, sometimes desperately, to capture our attention. This film takes us on a journey to meet some of them, to learn about their hopes and beliefs, their questionings and doubts, and to show a way towards a better future for the world.

 
The Messengers is an encounter with some exceptional artists who are also compelling characters: Nigel Osborne, the Scottish born humanist and musician, who has devised a new approach to music therapy for war traumatized children; Dominique Blain, Canadian installation artist whose work is geared to denouncing war games; Nicole Stéphane, militant filmmaker whose work spans many decades from the Spanish Civil War to the conflict in Bosnia; Susan Sontag, writer and activist who spent nearly three years working in Sarajevo under siege and developed a lasting friendship with Nicole Stéphane; Daniel Mermet, French writer and radio reporter whose motto is “to interfere in what is not our business without asking anyone’s permission”; and Ernest Pignon-Ernest, creator of street art who works with community groups in South Africa to raise Aids-awareness.