Directing
Manon Barbeau is a French Canadian filmmaker, director, writer and co-founder of Wapikoni Mobile, an organisation that helps First Nations youth learn the art of filmmaking. She has been Wapikoni Mobile’s general director since 2004.
Poetry and cinema merge as 11 filmmakers bring to life 21 poems by Québécois poets.
This short film is inspired by a stormy same-sex relationship in the Manawan community of the Atikamekw Nation, which led to a suicide. Since 2004, Wapikoni Mobile has been giving Indigenous youth the opportunity to speak out using video and music. This short film was made with the guidance of the traveling Wapikoni Mobile studios and is part of the 2007 Selection—Wapikoni Mobile DVD.
"Springtime means being outside. It means being able to play hopscotch, and sing songs, and play with bolo-bats. Comptines is about little girls celebrating spring in Montréal. They play in alley-ways, in doorways, in parks and on the street. They sing songs that were sung by their parents, and maybe their grandparents. Gibberish rhymes, counting songs, and old folksongs ring out in children's voices. Without commentary, this short sketch travels the by-ways of Montréal where little girls play. Comptines is a French word for children's song games." -- National Film Board of Canada
A collection of 7 animation short films inspired by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Each NFB award-winning film, in their peculiar way, deals with children's rights and addresses various aspects of the Convention.
In a quest to rediscover the spiritual values of his own people, an African filmmaker from the Gourmantche tribe of Burkina Faso visits an Aboriginal band, the Atikamekw of northern Quebec. The resulting documentary is a dialogue between those who divine the future in the sand with those who use snow-encased sweat lodges to reconnect with the spiritual world.
Spontaneous portrait of an endearing and cheerful teenager living in balance between traditionalism and modernity. She presents her regalia to us and we share her pride in being Innu.