La région centrale (1971)

To celebrate National Canadian Film Day, The Cinematheque presents Michael Snow’s magisterial La région centrale (1971), a three-hour, 360-degree study of a seemingly otherworldly mountaintop in northern Quebec, and a relevatory work for a 21-year-old Chantal Akerman.

This free National Canadian Film Day program is presented in conjunction with Cinematheque’s spring retrospective “Chantal Akerman: No Home Movies.” 

At the screening, READ Books will feature a selection of Michael Snow publications available for purchase, along with related publications including titles on filmmaker Chantal Akerman. 

For a 21-year-old Chantal Akerman entering the avant-garde cradle of New York in the early  ’70s, watching Michael Snow’s La région centrale was a formative encounter:  “The sensory experience I underwent was extraordinarily powerful and physical. It was a revelation for me, that you could make a film without telling a story.” In the magisterial three-hour work, made in the twilight of the American lunar missions, the camera, attached to a robotic arm, casts its roving 360-degree eye across a remote, seemingly otherworldly mountaintop in northern Quebec. Set to a soundtrack of waves and pulses emitting from the control box of the automated apparatus, La région centrale  “transports its audience to a rugged Canadian landscape that is discovered at noon and then explored in seventeen episodes of dizzying motion as the machine’s shadow lengthens, night falls, and light returns” (Martha Langford, Art Canada Institute).

The Cinematheque, founded in 1972, is a film institute and media education centre devoted to understanding the art and history of Canadian and international cinema and the impact of moving images and screen-based media in our lives. Their public activities include a year-round calendar of curated film exhibitions devoted to important classic and contemporary films and filmmakers; and an array of community outreach programs offering interactive learning opportunities in film appreciation, filmmaking, media literacy, and critical thinking.

The Cinematheque’s collections include a Film Reference Library housing thousands of film-related books and periodicals, and a West Coast Film Archive holding some 2,000 Canadian motion pictures, including a core collection of historically and artistically significant British Columbian works.